-Millions of our grandparents were caught up in conflicts that shaped the 20th century.

-"We'd finally been released.

I was only about seven stone by this time.

I thought we were all going to die."

Oh, God!

-Yeah, it gets you, doesn't it?

-[ Laughs ] -It does.

-It does, it really does.

-Now, four international stars retrace their family footsteps across the globe.

[ Suspenseful music plays ] -"Granddad was sitting with a gun, with instructions to shoot."

That must've been very difficult for my granddad.

That's going against every fatherly instinct.

-They uncover their grandparents' extraordinary stories.

-Your grandmother was here in one of the most historic moments of the 20th century.

-Oh, my goodness.

I never knew that.

-So, my grandfather's job was to keep an eye on Edward the abdicated king.

-Yes, he's MI5 and MI6.

-You can categorically say -[ Laughs ] -that my grandfather was a spy?

-He absolutely was a spy.

-[ Laughs ] What was she doing at a castle?!

[ Laughs ] Why are we at a castle?!

-I mean, that's mind-blowing.

That's her voice.

[ Explosions ] -They discover how their grandparents' experiences of war changed their own lives.

-We are memories passed down, experiences passed down.

Those traumas, those joys of his life, live in me somewhere.

-That's what you pass on to your grandchildren, that surviving spirit.

God, it's really got me.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I'm Kit Harington.

Over the years, I've acted the parts of soldiers, spies, and found fame as a medieval warrior in "Game of Thrones."

All four of my grandparents played comparable roles in real life during World War II.

I was incredibly close to my grandparents on my mum's side, Mick and Pippa Catesby.

I've had this image of my granny in the very later stages of her life and she went blind and, when I was doing "Game of Thrones," I had grown this beard.

And so I used to come in and give her a kiss on the forehead and she'd always remark on my bristles.

She died five or six years ago and, you know, I only ever knew her as an old lady, so, I'm really looking forward to learning about her as a -- about the rest of her life.

Pippa married my grandfather Mick in the middle of the war.

He served as an officer in the Royal Artillery.

When my grandmother came to see "War Horse," which was my first professional gig, she had this guttural reaction of, "There's Mick"... ...which I found incredibly moving, when I was told that she suddenly saw her first husband come out onstage, embodied by me.

Mick, sadly, passed away when I was eight years old.

[ Explosions ] I want to find out more about his part in one of the deadliest battles of World War II.

I think it affected him terribly, actually.

I'm kind of obsessed with the idea that we are memories passed down, experiences passed down and, through Mick's experiences, good and bad, I embody those, they've come through mum and they've landed on me.

Those traumas, those joys of his life, live in me somewhere.

My other grandparents, John and Lavender Harington, both worked for the British Secret Services.

My grandfather on my dad's side, he was the tall one, you know, we all look up to him.

[ Laughs ] Where did his genes go?

I have one very lovely story -- that he once hugged my grandmother so hard, after he hadn't seen her for a bit, that he broke her ribs.

[ Laughs ] They signed the Official Secrets Act.

All my family know is that my grandfather was connected to a controversy involving the former king of England.

I'm hoping to uncover his hidden life as a spy and secrets that strike at the heart of the British establishment.

[ Tender tune plays ] I'm starting my journey in Budleigh Salterton, Devon.

-[ Barks ] -This is where my grandmother Pippa lived.

I'm meeting my mum, Deb.

[ Bell tolling ] When Britain declared war against Hitler in September 1939, Pippa, aged just 19, volunteered as a nurse.

-She was very good with us when we were children and when we were hurt.

You felt absolutely secure with her and that came from her training as a nurse -Yeah.

-in Exeter during the war.

She was a theater sister, which was an extremely skilled job, and I'm sure she was incredibly conscientious and very good at it.

-My great-grandmother Joyce, a writer and artist, published a fictional account of her family life during the war.

One of her characters was based on my grandmother Pippa.

-It was a really romanticized but beautiful portrait of my mother as a nurse.

She called my mother the Linnet.

-Yeah, I see.

So, it says here... "The Linnet's uniform has arrived, and she is poised for flight, looking incredibly tall in a dress 10 inches from the ground, besides being incredibly attractive."

-Isn't that sweet?

That's -- -Really lovely.

So, that's about Granny.

-Yes, the linnet was based on Granny.

She was ever so proud of you, you know.

She was -- -Ohh.

Now, obviously, Dad claims the theatrical side of the family, but I think it comes down really through your side.

-You're so right.

-Yeah.

-You're so right.

-It's definitely from this side of the family.

-Yeah.

And I have a little surprise for you here, Kit, because that is -- -[ Laughs ] -That is you in early acting mode, you know, um, looking rather grumpy, actually.

-Send that to Sony.

-[ Laughs ] -Uh...

Looking really grumpy.

I think it's 'cause Jack's just beaten me up actually.

I know this series of photos.

In the previous one, he's dressed as Superman, giving me a battering, so I wasn't maybe very happy.

-Yes.

-Wonderful.

-Pippa hadn't yet met my grandfather Mick at the outbreak of the war.

He was working in the family-run furniture shop in London.

-The Catesby family business started off making their money in the First World War selling lino for war ships.

-Yeah.

-And my father was in charge of carpets.

And the family that he found so claustrophobic, I think, lived in suburban London in Pinner.

-Quite successful.

-Oh yes, yes, but with a huge lack of imagination in those parents.

The thing about Dad was that he signed up early, for the forces, for the army... -Mm-hmm.

-...because he didn't ever get on with the other men in his family who were all doing the same thing, running the family business, and I think he signed up to get away.

-Mick seemed to be slightly the odd one out.

-Absolutely.

He seemed to come from a whole different place, you know?

-Yeah.

-In 1939, Mick joined the Royal Artillery as a junior officer.

Pippa enrolled at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

♪♪ I've come to meet one of the last survivors of that generation of nurses, Lorna Hawkins.

I'm really, really excited to meet you because during the war you worked in the same hospital that my grandmother did.

And I was just wondering whether you could tell me about that, tell me about the experience of being there and what it was like.

-Obviously, as a young person just entering the hospital, as a trainee nurse, life was going on reasonably the same, but that changed, of course, with the advent of war.

-Yes, and how old were you when you went... -I was actually interviewed when I was 19.

-Right.

My grandmother was 20.

So you were around the same age.

How old are you now if you don't mind me asking?

I'm a hundred nearly.

-You're a hundred?

You're nearly a hundred?

-Yes I'm a hundred next week, is it?

Or the week after.

-You look fantastic for it.

-Well, thank you.

-You do!

You look amazing!

-Ooh, thank you.

-So, 1940, you go into the -- you go into the hospital.

-Yes.

-So this -- this is the picture of your SAT.

-Yes.

All obviously training at the same time.

And a very interesting thing about this -- -That's my grandmother there.

-No, don't tell me that.

-That's my grandmother.

That's Pippa.

-I can't get over that.

-So you remember her?

-Oh, well.

Very well.

I always said she was the one who was the most confident.

-Really?

-Yes.

-Oh, this is fascinating.

-No, she was the one I would lean on.

I can't get over that.

She was lovely.

-I've got another picture of her here.

Do you want to see it?

-Very well.

-Oh, this is amazing.

I can't believe you knew my grandmother.

-'Cause some of us, you see, weren't very confident.

I mean, we were more terrified.

-There she is there.

You see?

-Oh, yeah.

Look there.

-[ Laughs ] -Isn't she lovely?

She's got -- Ooh, she's got better bows than me.

-[ Laughs ] This boggles my mind.

so, you were in the same set, you were in the same teaching -- -Same team.

-Same team.

-Absolutely the same team.

-So, was there a real sisterhood amongst your band of nurses during the war?

-Yes.

Absolutely.

-Yeah.

-Very much so.

We were not at war.

We were a hospital.

But the war came to us.

[ Air-raid siren wails ] -War came to Lorna and my grandmother Pippa in April 1942.

Over two months, German planes dropped 75 tons of bombs on Exeter.

-I mean, the bombing and shelling was horrendous.

I mean, the earth beneath your feet moving.

And my prayer the whole time was, "Please don't hit the hospital."

The only damage we had was a couple of shells fell nearby, and the blast pulled the windows out, but it also pulled out, which is rather amusing, the girls' clothes.

[ Both laugh ] This is where -- There's always humor somewhere.

And everything seemed to have been blown onto the cabbage patch.

There was a vegetable patch.

-With a lot of nurses knickers on the veg-- -Yes, yes, and the matron had actually put out the edict to say any nurses who feel that their smalls have been blown out the window can go and claim them.

And it was so embarrassing.

-There was a lot of very -- -And it was young fireman who was collecting it all.

Stockings and [Mutters].

So there's always a funny side when things go wrong, isn't there?

-[ Laughs ] ♪♪ My grandmother stayed silent about those terrible months, and so did my grandfather Mick.

He was also in Exeter during the blitz.

Injured in an army training accident, he met Pippa in hospital.

They married just five months later at St. Peter's Church in Budleigh Salterton.

-This is a picture of them actually on their wedding day.

-I know this picture.

For the longest of times, it was my backdrop to my WhatsApp page.

-Oh, was it, Kit?

-Yeah, yeah, I had it.

So I always had them at the back of my chat.

Yeah.

-Oh, you old romantic.

-It's a lovely picture, that one.

-'Tis.

And this is what, um, my grandmother, your great-grandmother, wrote about them getting engaged.

-"He was in the army and a patient at the hospital when Exeter was so badly bombed.

The nurses, obeying orders, put tin basins on their heads.

Why on earth they hadn't been issued with proper tin hats I can't imagine, but there was your mum carrying newborn babies with a tin basin wobbling about on her head.

And your father, who, of course, had a proper tin hat, snatched the basin from your mother's head and plonked his own on in its place.

This act of unselfishness naturally endeared him to your mum, and love was born."

-[ Laughs ] -It was during the bombing of the hospital.

-During the bombing of the hospital that they fell in love.

-And he gives her his helmet.

-Well, there you go.

-"You can't have that tin bowl on your head.

What are you doing?

Have this."

-Oh, can you imagine it?

The swapping.

Oh, you would fall in love with someone who did that, wouldn't you?

-You would, wouldn't you?

Yes.

-Can I read on?

-Yes, please do.

-"Her wedding was a funny one.

The Budleigh Salterton Church had been bombed and was full of scaffolding.

No guests to speak of except some jolly nurses from the hospital and an equally jolly collection of officers from your father's regiment.

And as we had plenty of champagne, it was quite a gay affair.

The wedding cake was made of white cardboard... [Laughing] ...which when lifted revealed the minute real cake."

Oh, wonderful.

So they were all pissed, the church was a bomb site, and they had a funny old cake.

-[ Laughs ] -Well, that sounds great fun.

-It does, doesn't it?

-It's sort of this sort of, um, "end of the world" type feeling, I bet, that sort of like, "Well, if we're all gonna go, we're all gonna, but we're gonna..." -"We're gonna have a bit of fun while we're doing it."

-"We're gonna have a hoot while we do it."

-Yeah.

-It was quick.

-Yes, I think it was very immediate.

-'Cause they all thought they were gonna die I suppose, didn't know what was 'round the corner.

-Yeah.

-Better get married.

[ Inhales deeply ] Blimey.

-And then they had to start life after the war.

-Well, thank God they did, Mum, 'cause we wouldn't be here.

-No, we wouldn't.

We would neither of us be here.

No, we wouldn't.

-Thank God they did.

That's the funny thing, isn't it?

Like, I owe my life to that bloody war which made people get together like shotgun weddings.

♪♪ Months after their special day, Mick was sent to fight in Italy for over three years.

What he experienced there changed my grandparents' lives forever.

♪♪ During the dark days of World War II, my grandparents on my dad's side also found love and romance.

John and Lavender Harington met in the Caribbean while working for the British Intelligence Services.

I've come to meet my dad, David, in Hampshire.

-Well, this is the Hamble River, which is where we came down on holidays for about the first 10 years of my life.

-My grandfather, John, was a keen sailor and joined the Navy as a young boy.

-Tell me whether I'm going in the right direction.

-Yeah, going in the right direction.

We wanna head that way.

-More to port.

-Port, port.

My father was born during the war in 1944.

When my grandfather returned home, he taught him how to sail this river, which sat right next to their family home.

-And there is yours.

-It is an idyllic house, isn't it?

-It is.

It's perfect.

It's changed a lot, but it's still a lovely house.

Bad move, Father, getting rid of that one.

[ Both laugh ] Okay, I don't think we're disgracing ourselves as far as seamanship is concerned.

-We're going to my grandparents' local to learn what my father knows about their top-secret work for the intelligent services.

That's a very glamorous shot of Lavender, isn't it?

-Yeah.

"Lally" she was to everyone.

-Lally.

Lally.

And there's Nicholas.

-Nicholas.

-And that's you.

-And that's me.

That's '49.

So I'm 5 in that.

-What type of person was Lavender -- was Lally?

-Mother was loved by all.

You can't find anybody to have a bad word for her, and you just couldn't look for a better mother really.

She was a big noise in the church and all of those things.

Each village tends to throw up a queen of those things, and one of her hobbies was reading other people's letters.

So came the --- came the war, the censorship -- It was an obvious for her, so she went into that.

It was most important that these letters were censored so that no hint of where our soldiers were would be given to the enemy.

And that's Father.

-That's a very glamorous shot.

-Father had a considerable naval background.

-I was going to ask about this.

So he joined the Navy young, at 13.

-He went to Dartmouth Naval College.

-Yeah.

-And he left when he was 19.

-My grandfather left naval college in 1922 and became a lawyer.

My family knows very little about John's career in the shadowy world of the intelligence services during World War II, but John did once reveal that he was tasked to keep watch over the former king of England.

-One of the things father was involved with was dealing with the Duke of Windsor, because the Duke of Windsor was pretty much of a Nazi, his wife even more so, and they'd been quite chummy with Hitler.

-Right.

-So they sent him out to be the Governor of the Bahamas.

-Yes.

-And he was obnoxious there.

Father had a strong distaste for him.

-So my grandfather really disliked the Duke of Windsor.

-Oh, yes.

-Okay.

-Yes, and I don't know the extent to which Father had to be his minder, um, but he certainly was close enough to him to dislike him.

-I'm sure I've heard you say that they were very regimented after the war about not talking about it.

-Yes, and my parents, I now realize felt bound by the Official Secrets Act.

♪♪ -To find out how my grandfather moved from the Navy to the secret world of spying, I'm meeting historian Phil Tomaselli close to the Admiralty, headquarters of the Navy's Intelligence Department.

-I'm here to talk to you about your grandfather's career in the Navy, as is displayed on these copies of his naval service record.

Presumably you knew he'd been in the Navy.

-Yes, I knew he'd been in the Navy.

That's about all I know.

[ Both laugh ] -He joined in '39 and was posted to the, err, naval convoy service in Southend looking after the convoys that came in and out through the Thames.

It's an important job because an enormous amount of food, ammunition, that kind of thing came in through the Thames.

-Okay.

So then where does he go?

-Well, this is where it starts to get interesting.

He's recruited to the Naval Intelligence Division in 1941, "additional for duty outside the Admiralty."

When you see "duty outside the Admiralty," it means he has been appointed to one of the security services.

-So when we say intelligence officer -- Spy?

in some sense?

Or not?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

Okay.

-Yes, I was gonna come onto that.

-Spy.

-And having been appointed to N.I.D., he is appointed to HMS Morgan, which isn't a ship.

It's Jamaica.

It's perfectly possible that this man might have been involved, who's Ian Fleming, the writer of the James Bond books.

[ Laughter ] -So he may have been mates with Ian Fleming.

-He would have met Ian Fleming, without a doubt.

'Cause Ian Fleming was the personal assistant to the director of Naval Intelligence throughout the early part of the war.

-This is possibly my best chance at Bond.

You know, in my head, I've got this picture of people coming to him in black suits and dark glasses and sort of tapping him on the shoulder and telling him his life's gonna completely change.

Um, that's probably not how it works?

-Almost certainly not.

[ Laughter ] I mean, he may have been approached in a London club.

-An old boys' network.

-Old boys' network.

He's vetted by MI5 themselves to make sure he's not a problem, and suddenly you're in.

-Right.

Fascinating.

I am now gonna go and tell everyone that my grandfather was actually Bond.

Um, but it is -- it's interesting.

Fleming.

This is before Fleming wrote those novels.

And he would have met all sorts of people in the service, and possibly my grandfather was one of those.

I mean he went to Jamaica, um, Fleming, so he most likely would have met my grandfather.

Um, so in a really roundabout way, Harington might have inspired Bond.

I'll take it.

♪♪ During World War II, my grandfather John Harington was recruited by the British Intelligence Services and sent to Jamaica.

My family suspect he may have been part of a top-secret spying operation against the former king of England.

In 1936, Edward VII provoked a national crisis.

-A few hours ago, I discharged my last duty as king and emperor.

-He gave up the throne to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson.

The couple were given the title of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Months later, they caused even more controversy.

-Big headlines in Berlin hail the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The Duke seems at home.

He speaks fluent German.

He seems unconcerned over wide speculation aroused by his German visit.

-Because of the Windsors' Nazi sympathies, Winston Churchill appointed the Duke Governor of the Bahamas in 1940 to keep them out of harm's way.

♪♪ I'm meeting a leading expert on the British Intelligence Services.

Professor Richard Aldrich has spent weeks unearthing a treasure trove of secret files from the National Archives and personal diaries of former spies, which shines a new light on my grandfather's war.

Richard, this is a conversation I've really been looking forward to because it's part of my family history which is sort of steeped in mystery.

-Your grandfather has a fascinating Second World War.

In March 1941, he's appointed as defense security officer for the Caribbean.

He's both MI5 officer and also MI6 officer for the whole region.

So he's spy and spy catcher.

If you like both "Spooks" and James Bond.

He's based in Jamaica, and he has a fascinating neighbor, because the governor of the Bahamas at the time is the Duke of Windsor.

Wow.

Yeah, so this is the -- the part that I'm most fascinated by.

Am I right in thinking he was sort of keeping an eye on the Duke?

-Absolutely, because the Duke of Windsor likes hanging out with millionaires who are close the Nazis.

Actually he used to hang out with Oswald Mosely, the leader of the British Fascists.

And they tour Nazi Germany in 1937, and, extraordinarily, they go to meet Hitler in his alpine retreat.

This is the guy that your grandfather is sent to keep an eye on.

-Throughout 1941, the Windsors lobbied U.S. President Roosevelt to stay out of the war.

-Edward and Wallis were the first celebrity couple.

You know, the American Press are fascinated by this British king who's given up his throne for this American woman.

But Edward is saying Britain should stop fighting Germany, there should be a peace deal.

-Interesting.

So my grandfather's job was to keep an eye on Edward, the abdicated king, and report back on what he was doing and what he was -- who he was talking to.

Is that right?

-Yes, and he's MI5 and MI6.

But there's also FBI, there's Special Branch.

There's 24-hour surveillance when they go to Florida.

It's not just the phones being tapped.

There are bugs in the rooms.

This is a massive operation.

-So he's a bit of a spy?

-Absolutely he is.

-Excellent.

-And this is -- this is an important spy... -You can categorically say that my grandfather was a spy?

-He absolutely was a spy, and this is one of the most important... -Brilliant.

-...spying operations of 1940.

-We can stop there.

That's fine.

[ Laughter ] -And you have an additional dimension to this story, because John's uncle, Charles Dundas, was actually the governor of the Bahamas.

So he's the guy they chucked out to make way for the Duke of Windsor.

-So he gets the sack for the Duke -- -He's a really progressive, respected colonial governor, but sadly the Colonial Office say, "On your bike, mate, because the Duke of Windsor's coming."

-So that would have probably rubbed my grandfather up the wrong way already, before going into this job, keeping an eye on this guy thinking, "Well, you booted out my uncle."

-It rankles.

-Yeah.

-So, clearly, your grandfather, he's kind of this James Bond figure.

I wonder what he knew about your grandmother and what she was doing at the same time.

-My dad always said that she had a perfect war, because she liked reading other people's mail, and that's what she got to do.

-It's kind of more important than that in the sense that she's posted to Barbados, which is the center of this extraordinary intelligence operation, where she's opening diplomatic mail.

All German agents in America, they're sending their communications by airmail.

Saboteurs, people in Latin America who want to support Germany -- all their stuff is going by airmail.

It's the Bletchley Park of the Caribbean.

Your grandmother might have been opening and re-sealing 100 letters in a day.

-Wow.

-And you've gotta kind of read between the lines -- is this genuinely a letter reporting back from someone who's on holiday or are there little code words?

-Is it code?

Yeah.

-So it's a really skilled job.

-But this is typical of my family.

Everything's played down.

"Oh, what was Granny doing during the war?"

"Oh, she was reading other people's mail.

She had a great time."

But really she was involved in quite an amazing sort of operation out there.

-It's extraordinarily important because they're obviously watching known spies, they've got names to look out for.

But the real gold dust is the unknown spies.

So your grandmother and her team, even in 1941, they find nine unknown enemy agents that the allies knew nothing about, so... -This is really important.

-This is important work.

This is important work.

-Amazing.

♪♪ I know John and Lavender married just days after meeting.

To find out how this romance began, I'm visiting my Aunt Susan.

What I know is that they went to the Caribbean separately, and somehow, somewhere, they met out there.

And that's where I've got to.

I don't know how they met, under what circumstances they met, and I wondered if you could tell me.

-Well, she fell ill at one point, so she was in bed.

-Yeah.

-As you did.

-Yeah.

-With friends playing bridge.

-So this is her in her sick bed.

-And one of her friends brought in this man, and the man was, um, my father.

-Lovely.

-And then they went out for a meal and talked non-stop.

-So they hit it off like that.

[ Fingers snap ] So they hit it off.

They couldn't stop talking.

-Okay.

-And then they went for a moonlit ride around the island.

-Oh, God.

It sounds lovely.

-And a week later, they got engaged.

-A week later?

-Yeah.

And we think this is her setting off to go to New York.

-Oh, she was quite beautiful, wasn't she?

-She was very glamorous, actually.

-Yeah.

Where was she going when this was taken, do we think?

-We think she was going off to be married.

-Right.

So this was off -- off to the marriage.

-Off -- Yeah.

-12 days after this one?

[ Laughs ] Yes.

-[ Laughs ] -Yes.

And this is the letter telling all, that she wrote.

-Oh, wow.

We've got this.

"I must now try to give you some idea of him as a person.

He is six foot high."

Again, I don't know where those genes went.

"Rather broad, blue gray eyes, mouse-colored hair, not good-looking."

[ Laughter ] -I thought he was quite good-looking.

-He was quite good-looking.

"Clean shaven.

Age 37.

Quite a successful barrister by profession, having started life in the Navy.

Can't tell you what his present job is, as it is very confidential."

Ooh!

-Hm!

-"He has a delightful sense of humor, loves shooting, fishing, sailing."

"He loves" -- something -- "into the bargain."

-"Loves me."

-"He loves me into the bargain."

-Yes.

Isn't that sweet?

-Isn't that sweet?

-Mm.

-Oh, she's over the moon, isn't she?

-Yes, yeah.

And then this is, um, notes that she wrote to him.

-So she was trying to -- -She was trying to get on a plane to go and join him.

-To get married.

-To get married.

-"Questions.

One... where and when is the wedding?"

[ Laughter ] That's quite important, that.

"Two, how long are you in New York for?

Where are we going to?"

"Three, have you got me enough dollars to buy me a dress yet?

Four, do you still love me?"

-Yeah, I love that.

-Underlined, "Very important."

I never, obviously, knew her, and that's the first time I've heard her voice sort of from beyond the grave.

That's the first thing I've read of hers, and it's given me a real lovely insight to who she was.

She's funny, isn't she?

-She was very funny, very amusing.

-Yeah.

I've always thought the most important thing in any relationship is humor and if you can make each other laugh, and it sounds like they made each other howl with laughter.

-Oh, they did, they had a wonderful sense of humor, both of them.

-Yeah.

He's a gentleman.

He's charming, inquisitive, intelligent, but a bit of an enigma, um, is what I'm getting about Grandpa.

-Yes, yes.

♪♪ -At the same time, across the other side of the Atlantic, my grandfather on my mum's side, Mick Catesby, was thrown into one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war.

♪♪ I've come to Italy.

Mick, aged just 28, got his first taste of war here, an experience which scarred him for life.

♪♪ In 1943, 165,000 Allied troops, including my grandfather, landed in Southern Italy.

They believed they could conquer Italy within months and push north into Nazi Germany.

But the occupying German army had built the Gustav Line, which stretched 100 miles across the mountains of Central Italy.

It was manned by 150,000 Nazi troops, armed with heavy artillery and machine-gun posts.

♪♪ My grandfather had to break through the most heavily fortified point of the Cassino Mountains.

♪♪ On the 15th of February 1944, my grandfather witnessed Allied bombers wipe the Cassino Monastery off the face of the earth.

♪♪ Yet, the fighting continued for another three months and led to 75,000 casualties here.

♪♪ Walking around these graves everyone's younger than me, mainly in their twenties.

And that's really hit me today.

I've outlived these guys.

♪♪ Particularly with Mick, I have this strange connection with him, because my mum and my aunt say, "You remind me of your grandfather."

It does leave me to try and imagine me in Italy fighting what he fought, but it'll never get close to the reality of it.

He was a lost young man, miles away from home, under imminent threat of death, cold and tired... and just wanting to get home.

♪♪ My grandfather lost some of his closest friends here.

He didn't want to talk about what happened here.

He didn't even want to acknowledge that he'd won a medal.

He kept that hidden.

He kept it all hidden.

He just wanted to move on.

♪♪ I believe it did cause him irreparable damage throughout his life, not addressing it.

Can I blame him for that?

No, not at all.

Like I've said, I wouldn't begin to know how to imagine what he went through.

♪♪ After three long years of not seeing my grandmother Pippa, the horrors of war finally came to an end for Mick in 1945.

♪♪ To find out how both Mick and Pippa struggled to adapt to peace-time life, I'm meeting my aunts Pru and Julie at their childhood haunt on Hampstead Heath.

-He spent quite a lot of time getting back from the war.

-Yes, his words were he went to Rome and he liberated Rome of gin.

[ Laughter ] And that was -- that was something -- -That's a lovely sentence.

"I liberated Rome of gin."

-Those were his words.

Those were very much his words.

-That's very -- -Very dad-like.

-So what do you know of what Granny was doing then, what he was doing then?

-I think that's probably one of the toughest times for both of them.

Mum was nursing.

She became a quite high-up nursing sister in Exeter, and she had to give up that career the second Dad came back from, from the war, because then -- -Women didn't work, weren't allowed to work.

She wasn't allowed to work.

-You know?

And -- -And that was quite typical after the war.

Women had found -- -Absolutely.

-Women had found a job and... -Yeah.

-And she loved it.

-...a vocation, and then the men came home, and they were expected to give it up.

-But, of course, for Dad, as well, it was tough.

You know, he'd been away, and, you know, had grown up through all this stuff that he had to endure in the war.

And suddenly he was thrown together.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Yeah.

-These two -- I mean, it might be making too big a thing to say two strangers, but, you know, they -- -Yeah.

Do you think there might be some sort of survivor's guilt there?

You know, a lot of his comrades died essentially and that he -- -With Dad, I think it was a lot of his men died, a lot the men that he was -- in his charge, effectively.

That would have affected him terribly, something like that.

-Yeah.

That's inc-- -It's a tough one to live with, isn't it?

-Unimaginably hard to live with.

-Yeah.

-In later life, my grandfather started writing poetry.

The psychological scars of war are clear in his writing.

"For I shall never see them more, those that I have lived with, talked with, laughed with, so intimately.

Is it so useless?

Five long years, the best of your life they say.

And yet never to speak with them again in that way that no one outside knows.

Passing through all superficial speech until it forms into a bond that grips and bursts when it is roughly pulled away, for each to reel and flounder out along his path of mud."

My grandparents fell head-over-heels in love during the war, but Mick struggled to get over what he suffered.

They divorced in the 1960s.

♪♪ However, the end of World War II did not bring an end of service for my other grandfather, John Harington.

-In April 1944, because he's done so well in the Caribbean, MI5 seem to have marked him out for an even more important job.

-Oh, really?

-He becomes MI5's key security man in the Colonial Office.

So he's no longer just dealing with the Caribbean, but the Cold War's already starting, there's a war that's kicked off in Palestine.

-Mm.

-And here we have the personal recollections of the deputy head of MI5.

This diary is still security-sensitive.

There are still things that are top-secret about this document.

And it looks like your grandfather pops up.

And it's these names here that are particularly interesting.

-Kim Philby.

Why does Kim Philby ring a bell?

-Kim Philby is probably one of the better-known British intelligence officers of the 20th century.

He's also a Soviet spy.

He's one of that famous ring.

-The Cambridge ring.

-The Cambridge Five.

-Yes.

Okay.

Philby was a Soviet double agent from 1934 until he defected in 1963.

My grandfather, as head of security for MI5 and MI6 in the Colonial Office, would have spent years working alongside him.

-Everyone who rubbed shoulders with him looked back and said, "Was there a moment when something gave the game away?"

-But that would have been a huge thing for my grandfather when that was revealed.

That would have been a huge news story for him.

"I know Philby.

I spent -- I had meetings with him."

-All those people were shocked.

And, of course, espionage is a world of trust, so here's someone you trust with top secrets and then proves to be a long-term Soviet agent.

It reverberates.

It reverberates.

-So do we know when my grandfather left MI5?

-We don't know exactly when he left, and it's often said that people in MI5 and particularly in MI6 -- remember your grandfather was both -- never real leave.

-Yeah.

-They've always got links back to what they call "the office."

-Yeah, so he would have always maybe had a phone call to him -- -"Can you help us?"

And you'd keep your friends.

But maybe not Kim Philby.

-Do you know what's unfortunate, really?

His intelligence has not been passed down to me.

[ Laughs ] It's just really sad it went somewhere else.

-But there's many kinds of intelligence required for the spy world, and maybe... -Yeah.

Not mine.

[ Laughter ] -I think to be a good spy you've got to be a good actor.

-Yeah, maybe not an actor who's been on the telly.

[ Laughter ] ♪♪ I'm so proud of all four of my grandparents.

Across the globe, they put their lives on the line during World War II.

There was a huge war effort on their part, what they risked, and they did it for a greater good for their country and for a cause.

♪♪ Although they're two different backgrounds, there's this idea of being humble, of being quiet about things, not showing off.

♪♪ It is something I hold really dear.

I've gone and found a life partner who holds those things very strongly, as well, so my son will, doubtless, have that... will be brought up feeling that way.

I really treasure the values I've inherited from them.

What's been fascinating is seeing glimpses of me in them.

I think we're all a big melting pot of our fore-grandparents.

But as an actor with a tantalizing vacancy in the film world, there's one thing they didn't give me.

If they'd have just passed me a few more of the tall genes, I might have been up for Bond.

Everything's there.

They gave me everything.

They equipped me with everything.

But they made me 5'7", which is just about two or three inches too short to be James Bond.

♪♪ ♪♪ This program is available on Amazon Prime Video.

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