The Russia House

SIR: I was so pleased to see the article concerning Kim Philby (April issue). My late husband and I purchased our first house, in Hertfordshire, from him in 1955 and were most surprised to be deluged by reporters not very long afterwards. They were trying to contact any friends or relatives, but we did not know what they were talking about until someone suggested we read the next day’s newspapers – when we discovered that he had ‘absconded’. Gilliam Ching, Swaffham, Norfolk