Charlotte Bingham - Spies and Stars: MI5, Showbusiness and Me

SPIES AND STARS

For Terence, in memory of all the gaiety and the laughter but most of all the fun!

WITH TERENCE BRADY

Non-fiction

Coronet Among the Weeds

Coronet Among the Grass

MI5 and Me: A Coronet Among the Spooks

Novels

Lucinda

The Business

In Sunshine or in Shadow

Stardust

Nanny

Change of Heart

Grand Affair

Love Song

The Kissing Garden

Country Wedding

The Blue Note

The Love Knot

Summertime

Distant Music

The Magic Hour

Fridays Girl

Out of the Blue

In Distant Fields

The White Marriage

Goodnight Sweetheart

The Enchanted

The Land of Summer

The Daisy Club

Love Quartet

Belgravia

Country Life

At Home

By Invitation

Nightingale Saga

To Hear a Nightingale

The Nightingale Sings

Debutantes Saga

Debutantes

The Season

The Bexham Trilogy

The Chestnut Tree

The Wind Off the Sea

The Moon at Midnight

Eden Saga

Daughters of Eden

The House of Flowers

Mums on the Run Series

Mums on the Run

A Dip Before Breakfast

Victoria Series

Victoria

Victoria and Company

Honestly Series

No, Honestly

Yes, Honestly

Upstairs, Downstairs Series

Roses Story

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

The action of this book takes place in England in the 1950s.

It seems to me now that Harry did rather well working as an undercover agent for my father, although at the time it was not what you could call a slam dunk.

Harry had already had the misfortune to fall in love with me. On top of this calamity, and even more unfortunately for him, I came with a Top Secret file attached to my suitcase on account of my father being very active as an MI5 officer. The one thing that Harry had going for him was that he was an actor. Now this may seem unlikely, and I can see that it might, but my father was pursuing a popular theme with British security folk at the time, namely that our airwaves and films were being infiltrated by communist-leaning people who were intent on bending minds and hearts towards Stalin and the Iron Curtain. According to the secret services thinking, pretty soon the whole population would be pleading to work on collective farms and singing The Red Flag in tavern and cottage, not to mention pub and club.

I have to say I did not see it that way, and I told my father as much, which did not go down terribly well, as it wouldnt. In fact, he was so unconvinced that he walked off into the garden smoking a cigarette while wearing the kind of expression I imagined he used when interrogating a double agent.

My thought was that, first of all, the British people liked nothing better than a laugh and there were not many of those to be had with communists. Also that the goodly British people would be much more likely to opt for Flanagan and Allen singing Show Me The Way to Go Home than The Red Flag; and as for country pursuits, they would never swap listening to The Archers, the popular radio serial about farming life in Britain, for one about collective farming. I maintained that people would take to the streets if the BBC took this staple of our national life off our airwaves. Of course, I couldnt leave it at that, could I? Even after Fathers ominous exit from the drawing room and the smell of cigarette smoke beginning to permeate his beloved garden, I did not climb down from my soap box but went on speaking to a room devoid of everyone except my mother and me.

Youve really annoyed your father now, Lottie, she said in a thank you very much for that voice.

I nodded. I knew I had but I could not shut up. It was one of my worst faults. I knew this because my girlfriend Arabella told me as much every time we had a coffee together, and Harry said the same, so they must both have been right, but that didnt stop me. Mrs Graham, who helped us with cooking and dusting things, on a daily basis, always agreed with the general verdict.

You will have your say no matter what, Miss Lottie, she had intoned to me since I was tall enough to steal her jam tarts from the sideboard. And one of these days it will get you up to your neck in scalding water.

I left for the nearby coffee bar and the company of Harry, which although not always comfortable, I mean the coffee bar oh, and Harry too on a bad day was at least lively. Better that than the awful silence that had fallen over Dingley Dell, as our house in leafy Kensington has always been known to its fans. As I walked to meet him I could only hope that Melville and Hal, the two actors who lodged with us, would be back soon to divert my mother, as they always did, with talk of tatty theatrical tours and perfidious producers.

This particular early-summer evening Harry was looking very Hamlet, which was only natural since he was out of work as Hamlet must have been, because lets face it, the poor fellow was fairly unemployable. All that business about seeing his fathers ghost and thats before he starts on at Ophelia about becoming a nun I mean, talk about beastly. He could at least have wished her better luck with someone nicer than himself. I tell you, Hamlet might have been a prince but he was certainly no gentleman.

Still no calls or offers? I asked tactlessly as I sat down opposite Harry. I had started to consider myself fairly well versed in dealing with actors.

I had discovered from Hal and Melville that the best way to cope with an actors depression was to get on with it: grasp the nettle. Hal and Melville, by the way, while pursuing their stage and screen careers were also in the way of reporting back to my father on the extreme left-wing activities of their fellow thespians.

Harry looked away at the traffic moving slowly past the window of the coffee bar. I am thinking of leaving Gus, he finally announced, in the tone of someone who has just discovered they have chickenpox.

Gus was Harrys current actors agent. Harry had gone through quite a few agents.

Might be a good thing, I offered, while at the same time wondering who else was left who would take Harry on. His list of credits was about as long as my attention span.

Harry sighed, deeply. It was the kind of sigh that might easily be heard over the radio waves when a tractor had broken down on The Archers and there were no spare parts to be had even for ready money.

I like Gus, Harry continued. But he will keep nicking from me when we play squash.

He really should wait to nick from you until after hes got you a job, I reasoned. There would be more to nick.