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´A Jilly Cooper heroine in a John le Carré world´ (Libby Purves, TLS); a beguiling comic memoir about a young woman who discovers her father is a spy (and was the model for John le Carré´s George Smiley) and goes to work as a secretary in 1950s MI5

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´A Jilly Cooper heroine in a John le Carré world´ (Libby Purves, TLS); a beguiling comic memoir about a young woman who discovers her father is a spy (and was the model for John le Carré´s George Smiley) and goes to work as a secretary in 1950s MI5

Much to her surprise, eighteen-year-old Lottie has just found out that her aloof, rather unexciting father is a spy. And now he´s decreed that she must make herself useful and get a Proper Job - so she´s packed off to MI5 herself, trussed up in a dreary suit. Luckily her delightful colleague Arabella is on hand to enliven the torments of typing and decode the enigmas of office life. But as Lottie´s home fills with actors doubling as spies, and Arabella´s mother is besieged with mysterious telephone calls, the girls start to feel well and truly spooked.

A hilarious true story, and a unique window into 1950s Britain - where Russian agents infiltrate the highest echelons, where debutantes are typists and where Englishness is both a nationality and a code of behaviour - MI5 and Me is a sparkling comic memoir.

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An astonishing tale . She still has all the exuberant delight of a teenager in telling stories to make herself and other people laugh. Long may she write Lynn Barber Sunday Times

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Charlotte Bingham wrote her first book, Coronet Among the Weeds, a memoir of her life as a debutante, at the age of 19. It was published in 1963 and became an instant bestseller. She went on the write a further memoir, Coronet Among the Grass. Her father, John Bingham, the 7th Baron Clanmorris, was a member of M15 where Charlotte Bingham worked as a secretary. He was an inspiration for John le Carré´s character George Smiley.

Charlotte Bingham went on to write thirty-three internationally bestselling novels and, in partnership with her late husband Terence Brady, a number of successful, plays, films and TV series including Upstairs Downstairs and Take Three Girls. She lives in Somerset.

charlottebingham.com

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