As a childhood reader of spy novels, I acquired high expectations of the secret world. British spies would be flamboyant and exceptional Bond-types. But looking around the post-university scene, I realise that all the people I knew who became spies are dull. There was the humdrum civil service fast streamer who mysteriously ended up living in Portsmouth, the location of MI6’s training camp, for a few months. Another vanilla acquaintance abandoned post-university travels plans to move to Cheltenham, home of GCHQ. There was an unmemorable trainee Army officer whose digital footprint disappeared without trace.
