I Worked For Mi6 In The Sixties,

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold Was The Work Of A Wayward Imagination Brought To The End Of Its Tether By Political Disgust And Personal Confusion. Fifty Years On, I Don't Associate The Book With Anything That Ever Happened To Me, Save For One Wordless Encounter At London Airport When A Worn-out, Middle-aged Military Kind Of Man In A Stained Raincoat Slammed A Handful Of Mixed Foreign Change On To The Bar And In Gritty Irish Accents Ordered Himself As Much Scotch As It Would Buy. In That Moment, Alec Leamas Was Born. Or So My Memory, Not Always A Reliable Informant, Tells Me.

Completing A Book, It's A Little Like Having A Baby.... There's A Feeling Of Relief And Satisfaction When You Get To The End. A Feeling That You Have Brought Your Family, Your Characters, Home. Then A Sort Of Post-natal Depression And Then, Very Quickly, The Horizon Of A New Book. The Consolation That Next Time I Will Do It Better.

When A Problem Threatens To Engulf You, There's Nothing Like Irrelevant Detail To Keep Your Head Above Water.

Out Of Date, Perhaps, But Who Wasn't These Days? Out Of Date, But Loyal To His Own Time. At A Certain Moment, After All, Every Man Chooses: Will He Go Forward, Will He Go Back? There Was Nothing Dishounorable In Not Being Blown About By Every Little Modern Wind. Better To Have Worth, To Entrench, To Be An Oak Of One's Own Generation.

It's The Oldest Question Of All, George. Who Can Spy On The Spies?