Irina Volkov

Irina Volkov fled the Soviet Union in the 1930s and settled in Edinburgh, where she trained as a nurse at the Royal Infirmary. During the war, she treated wounded servicemen returning from campaigns across Europe and also served as a translator for injured Soviet and Polish sailors whose convoys docked at Leith. Her Russian language skills proved invaluable when working with crews from Arctic Convoy ships. She became a British citizen in 1946.