Mrs Ramsay

In the novel The Clocks, Mrs Ramsay and her husband occupy 62 Wilbraham Crescent. Her husband, a construction engineer, is frequently overseas and she is left to look after their two children Bill and Ted who give her a lot of stress.

Because of her husband's frequent travel, the espionage agent Colin Lamb asked for Mr Ramsay to be vetted by his department. The vetting and subsequent investigations (including a field trip by Colin to Rumania led Colin to conclude that Mrs Ramsay's husband had abandoned his family and had defected behind the Iron Curtain. Mrs Ramsay told Colin she knew about it. He had asked her to come along but she declined, for personal reasons--she wants her two boys to be brought up in their own country. She told Colin that she had never been more than mildly left-wing.