Len Deighton, Novelist, RIP

Hi Woodsy

I expect you have already seen this, but I just spotted a news item on the death of writer Len Deighton (18th February 1929- 15th March 2026), aged 97. You have mentioned him so often, and I even have his cookbook, as well as a couple of the films based on his novels.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

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Woodsy adds:

Thanks Paul, It's a great shame. I associate Len Deighton with my late Dad really, so it feels doubly sad, as it was his taste in novels. Deighton stood in his bookcase alongside Sixties writers Alistair McClean, John le Carre and Jack Higgins. My Dad was in the Navy in WWII and enjoyed his post-war spies in particular, which rubbed off on me during the Sixties spy craze and I still have the spy bug.

I haven't read any of Len Deighton's books myself, which I ought to rectify, if anything, to see what my Dad liked so much. The titles are part of spy book culture now, like Funeral in Berlin.

Several became famous Michael Caine movies, him playing the tough bespectacled Harry Palmer in Billion Dollar Brain, Funeral in Berlin and The Ipcress File, perhaps the most well-known. 

Here's Funeral in Berlin on VHS, given the Caine cover treatment.

The Ipcress File even made it to the toy factory and became a Milton Bradley board game. Now as collectable as Harry Palmers specs it's one I've never seen in the flesh ( not to be confused with the Odessa File game, which I have owned).

Have you any Len Deighton or Harry Palmer books and things?

SHHHH! SECRET SUE AND OTHER SPY DOLLS

If like me you like vintage spy dolls then this article is for you. From the Doll Boldly site here's Double Trouble:

https://thebolddoll.com/vintage/double-trouble/

What do you think?

On your Christmas list now?

JUNIOR 7

 We wuz over at Junior's place recently, when he'd just turned 7.

As a party favour, I got him some random toy missiles but I've no idea what they're off. Have you?

We visited the local scrap-store, where junk destined for landfill gets stocked and sold to crafters. I bought Junior a black funnel type thingy to make a rocket from! there's a whole stack of them on a shelf in this pic. Just ten pence each!

Junior was seven at the end of September and his folks got him this Playmobil spy station. It's big and complex, with false walls and radar cars and more! We would have loved it in the Sixties and Seventies too!

Did you have a spy station or base?

THERE'S MERIT IN BEING A SPECIAL AGENT

 I'm fond of the old Merit Special Agent set. I didn't have it as a kid but later as a collector I found an incomplete one at a car boot sale. I spent a good few years trying to complete it but with only a little success, replacing the retractable knife only.

So it's always a thrill to see complete sets still around and here's one I clocked on eBay so I kept the pics.  Doesn't look like there's anything missing!

I discovered that Merit released the toy sprung knife separately on an Army header card. I never found anything else released separately.

 The last picture shoes this set appearing in the Argos catalogue in 1974. It was for sale at £2.25. Wow! Did you have one?

Did you have a set like this?

SUPER TOY PACK SPECIAL AGENT

De-cluttering reveals stuff. I'd forgotten about this Spacial Agent set I had.

In its clear baggy and with a generic header for pocket money type toys, I think I bought it from a Newsagents for 99p in the late 90's.

I was fascinated by spy and agent toys as a nipper and this continued into adulthood. I picked up attache cases and agent sets wherever I could. It was fun selling them on.

I will have squirreled this set away for posterity and now it's surfaced it's part of our latest Ebay sales.

The contents appear to be general agent toys and similar cuffs, pistol, radio and ID card appeared in countless spy sets right into the noughties. Not sure if they're that popular now as the allure of cold war spies and the FBI may have waned in the minds of modern kids.

Did you - do you like spy and secret agent toys?

SKYFALL

OO7's latest incarnation, SKYFALL, will explode onto the big screen soon. The trailers have started on the telly and there's even a OO7 Eau de Cologne available! One spray for a licence to thrill!

James Bond is the silver screen contemporary of Thunderbirds, SWORD, Major Matt Mason, JOE 90, Billy Blastoff and SPACEX. Fleming's creation was probably singlehandedly responsible for the Secret Agent craze of the 1960's, which led to kids dressed in Man from Uncle's Ilya and Napoleon's Counterspy Trench Coat, clutching their Secret Sam attache case and taking snaps of next doors' cat with a hidden instamatic! I know 'cos I was one of 'em!

 

 

Does anyone else like spy toys and will you be going to see Skyfall in your Trench Coat?

Man From Uncle 1966 Counterspy Outfit

by MARX

Woodsy collection.

More to come!