The origins of a fascination with espionage, perhaps?

I offer my thanks to crime and thriller writer Mike Ripley, who's shared with me an interview he completed with Len Deighton at the end of last year which has just appeared in the CADS newsletter. One interesting answer Deighton gives to Mike points us in the direction of his early interest in spy fiction, and corroborates the fact that I'd seen this mentioned somewhere a while back, but could get no confirmation of it.

Deighton, as a child, lives in Gloucester Place Mews, Marylebone: "One night, I leaned from the window to see our next door neighbour Mrs Wolkoff being arrested. My mother worked for her as a cook and saw the VIPs she had as dinner guests. Dear old Anna was an important spy working for the Germans. After a trial at the Old Bailey she went to prison. For reasons we must not probe into, the Special Branch falsified the records to say she was arrested in South Kensington. That commotion in the small hours of the morning stayed in my memory."