Mick Smith - Times Online - WBLG

Tracking Down Grandma's Secret Life as a Spy

The myth that Ian Fleming knew very little about MI6 has thankfully been exploded by a new file belated released to the National Archives at Kew, see Sunday’s article in the Sunday Times. The file was uncovered by Phil Tomaselli during research for his forthcoming book on how to track down your ancestors if they worked in intelligence. Ever since I wrote Station X: the Codebreakers of Bletchley Park, I have had repeated requests from people whose parents or grandparents worked there asking me if I know what they did. So I always knew Phil’s book Secret Service Ancestors, to be published by Pen and Sword would find a ready market. Unfortunately, the name of his book was removed in some editions of the Sunday Times, so here is the title once again Secret Service Ancestors. It is full of fascinating revelations. Tomaselli is a master at uncovering the hidden secrets of Britain's spooks and his book goes back to before the First World War, so if your parents, grandparents, or even your great-grandparents worked as codebreakers, or spies, or in any area of intelligence and you want to know what they did, this is the book to buy.

PS I'm on holiday in Turkey so apologies if you comments are taking a little longer to moderate than normal. Mick

Wanted: The New Miss Moneypenny

MI6 is searching for the new Miss Moneypenny, the loyal personal assistant to the head of the secret service who never succumbed to James Bond’s charms. A job advertisement on the TimesOnline website comes shortly after the death of Lois Maxwell, the actress who played Moneypenny in 14 Bond movies over 25 years, although intelligence contacts tell me that it is a pure coincidence. There is of course already a new Miss Moneypenny in the films, the actress Samantha Bond (no relation).

Was Martin McGuinness an MI6 Agent?

A very interesting article by David Sharrock in today’s Times on allegations by Martin Ingram, a former British Army agent, that Martin McGuinness was secretly working for MI6. There will of course be a great deal of scepticism surrounding these allegations but Ingram is not the first to have made them. They have also been made in the past by sources in the then RUC, although I must say I cannot remember them being published before. The first question to ask is how would RUC officers and British Army intelligence agents get to know if McGuinness was an MI6 agent. That sort of information would have been very tightly held, and what was MI6 doing in Northern Ireland anyway. It is the foreign intelligence service so in theory should not be involved in northern Ireland. McGuinness himself has refused to comment but the story has been predictably dismissed by Sinn Fein, who said: “We have heard this all before,” a spokesman said. “It is rubbish. It is nonsense.” Indeed we have heard this before. But it is unlikely to go away and strange as it may seem there is interesting evidence that some might see as backing up Ingram’s claims.