His Christian faith made him sternly anti-Stalinist; and the researches at Company House of Peter Lashmar and James Oliver have revealed in their 1998 book, Britain's Secret Propaganda War, that Cannon Brookes was the front man for several news agencies and publishing firms, ostensibly quite independent, which spread round the Near and Middle East notions of how the free world should run.He soldiered on, in fact, for nearly 30 years more, well into the Cold War; while preserving his public face as a genial, safe, reliable family man.M R D Foot. All these bodies were longing to see their countries liberated from Nazi or Fascist occupation, but few of them (the Poles were here an honourable exception) were prepared to risk the casualties that were likely to be involved.In the winter of 1943-44, after Gubbins had taken overall charge, Cannon Brookes succeeded Sporborg as principal private secretary for SOE affairs for the Earl of Selborne, whose cover was that he was Minister of Economic Warfare (Selborne said that SOE took up about four-fifths of his time; Parliament, Cabinet, MEW and his family estate absorbed the rest).As such, it was Cannon Brookes's duty to attend SOE's Council meetings - every Wednesday without fail, more often (daily if necessary) when a crisis was running, as it often was. It was his business to summon the members, keep and circulate the minutes, and ensure that Council's decisions were carried through: no light task, but one calmly and efficiently performed.On SOE's abrupt winding-up in January 1946 Cannon Brookes went back to Cannon Brookes & Odgers, and picked up as best he could the threads of the business and family affairs he had been running before the war. They dealt mainly with the always delicate problem of relations with the governments in exile in London. At MEW he again met Harry Sporborg, whom he had known at Slaughter & May; and in late summer 1940 Sporborg invited him to join the ministry's secret appendix, the Special Operations Executive.In those early days, SOE had to recruit on the old-boy net; its members invited those they knew and trusted already to join them - there was no other safe way of staffing a new secret service. Philby was soon removed into a post with a rival secret service more interesting to his Soviet masters.Cannon Brookes held a series of medium-ranking posts in SOE, with a galaxy of cover initials, mainly as assistant to Sporborg, who rose to be one of the two deputies on whom General Colin Gubbins, SOE's last executive head, chiefly depended. He never rose to high rank, but he never made an indiscretion, and nothing surprised him - not even having to work briefly with Kim Philby, whom he found disagreeable.

Sporborg's choice of Cannon Brookes was fully justified: as a solicitor, he understood already the need to keep his mouth shut, he had a clear, trained head, he knew something about the enemy, he was prepared to work irregular hours, his personality was stable. As soon as he qualified, he joined the family firm of Cannon Brookes & Odgers; but he received an invitation, early in the Second World War, to join the Ministry of Economic Warfare, where he did much for the Finns during their winter war against the Soviet Union in 1939-40. In 1935 he married Nancy Markham Carter, the cousin of a Cambridge friend, his devoted wife for almost 60 years (she died in 1994). He also met there several notable musicians, including Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walther and Benjamin Britten.Returning to England, he took up his lifelong career as a family solicitor, working at first in Slaughter & May. In 1933 he went to stay in south Germany, to improve his knowledge of the language, and was thus able to observe at first hand the early stages of the Nazi revolution at work in German society; as well as making several friends in the German aristocratic opposition, several of whom came to horrible ends in the last winter of the war. He did not belong to Council - all those who did are now dead; but he was its secretary and kept its minutes, once deadly secret, now in the National Archives at Kew.

Victor Montgomery Cannon Brookes, solicitor, secret-service officer and publisher: born London 24 May 1911; married 1935 Nancy Markham Carter (died 1994; two sons); died Oxford 18 April 2004. Victor Cannon Brookes, a solicitor, was the last survivor of those who attended the Council of the Special Operations Executive, the formidable body that directed the subversive secret service's work. Thereafter, as Stoke declined towards the lower reaches of the Second Division and Wilshaw approached his middle thirties, he became less of a force but had no immediate plans for retirement when he suffered a broken leg in an FA Cup clash with Newcastle United in February 1961.He never played League football again, opting instead to pursue a successful teaching career, which included the headship of a school in Stoke and a leading role in the Service and Community Studies department at Crewe and Alsager College of Education.Ivan Ponting. At Molineux Wilshaw had maintained an enviable strike rate of better than one goal for every two games - his precise record was 112 strikes in 219 senior outings - and he was not far off equalling it at the Victoria Ground where he totalled 49 in 108.His peak for the Potters came in 1958/59, when he knocked in 15 as the side finished just outside the promotion places.

Even then, at a time when the England line-up was in a state of constant flux, Wilshaw never managed to become a fixture and he collected his last cap, as a 30-year-old, against Northern Ireland at Windsor Park, Belfast, in October 1956.Back at club level, he remained a force with Wolves until he joined his hometown club, Second Division Stoke City, a £10,000 fee changing hands in December 1957. Wilshaw flourished at Fellows Park, establishing a productive frontline partnership with Doug Lishman, eventually doing so well that he was recalled to Molineux in September 1948 as an understudy for the centre-forward Jesse Pye.Competition for senior places was intense, but when the versatile Wilshaw was given his top-flight d?t at outside-left in March 1949, he responded with a hat-trick against Newcastle United, then underlined his burgeoning status with a brace in each of his next two outings, both as leader of the line. There followed a trip to the 1954 World Cup Finals in Switzerland, where he made two appearances, registering against the host nation but drawing a blank as England were knocked out by Uruguay in the quarter-finals.Wilshaw's most glorious international achievement, though, was reserved for a memorable encounter with Scotland at Wembley in April 1955 when he netted four times in a 7-2 annihilation of the old enemy, linking brilliantly with Bolton's Nat Lofthouse and Don Revie of Manchester City. Though still nominally a Wolves reserve - he was overlooked for that term's FA Cup Final triumph over Leicester City - he was called up by England B in the May, and scored twice against Finland in Helsingfor.Gradually it became impossible for Wilshaw's club boss, Cullis, to ignore his claims for a regular berth, which he finally secured in 1952/53, then he enjoyed his most productive campaign in 1953/54 as the hard-running Wolves pipped West Bromwich Albion and Huddersfield Town - how the balance of power has shifted - for the title.By then he had earned his first full cap, against Wales at Ninian Park, Cardiff, in October 1953. Shortly after plundering 10 goals in one match he was enlisted as an amateur by the Molineux club in September 1943, being elevated to the first team for a wartime league match only seven days later.While training to be a teacher, he agreed professional terms with Wolves in March 1944 and, the club being well endowed with forwards, he was loaned to Walsall of the Third Division South in May 1946.