Ashley

Ashley is a place name, and a surname as well as both a male and female given name. The place name is derived from the Old English words 'æsc' (ash) and 'lēah' (meadow).

Ashley can also be spelled Ashlie, Ashlee, Ashly, Ashli, Ashleigh, Ashliegh and Ashlaie.

Places

People

Other uses

Frank Bossard

Frank Clifton Bossard (13 December 1912 – 19 June 2001) was a British Secret Intelligence Service agent who provided classified documents to the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

Early life

Bossard was born in 1912 to a poor single mother, Ethel Bossard (née Clifton). His father, Frank Bossard, a journeyman joiner, had died before he was born. His mother worked as a housekeeper and general store manager in Gedney, Lincolnshire until 1923, when she married a farmer and moved to the country. Bossard dropped out of school when his stepfather could no longer afford it and became a store clerk. Despite his lack of education, Bossard became interested in radios, building his first one at sixteen.

In the 1930s Bossard joined the British Union of Fascists, but felt himself out of place among people whom he regarded as upper-class. Eventually he saved enough money to attend radio technology courses at Norwich Technical College. When he ran out of money he was arrested for attempting to cash a forged cheque in 1934. Bossard served six months hard labour, a fact he suppressed throughout most of his career.