The Honoruable Schoolboy part one

I have enjoyed reading the 575 pages of John Le Carré 1977 second book of his Karla Smiley trilogy called The Honourable Schoolboy, so much so that I stayed up reading in bed until after 1 am last in order to find out what happens at the end of his full complex but always engaging story. It is a book to be read once and enjoyed and then read again, making notes before writing a considered article. I have the time but am not prepared to use for this purpose given other priorities and planned programmes of activity. However nor can I simply write an impression and must check back whenever I am unsure or seek additional information. In event I compromised and settled for writing with more rereading over the weekend and a two part note reflecting the two part of the volume.

The story is set as USA were about to get out of Vietnam in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge to take power in Cambodia under Pol Pot for the next four horrendous years. China after the Cultural Revolution had become unstable with the arrest of so called gang of four in 1976. The Americans were beginning to lick their wounds and distrustful and resentful of the Brits who had kept out of Vietnam and had nearly led them into sharing their intelligence with the enemy, the cold war enemy of Russia.

The story of the Honourable Schoolboy can be considered from three perspectives. The principal is that of the Honourable Jerry Westerby who works as an International Reporter in the Far East, undertaking assignments for British Intelligence for which he has been fully trained but is presently on a Sabbatical writing the great novel in Tuscany shacked up with a young woman that came by his way,

The second is that not just the perspective of George Smiley temporary chief of Intelligence Operations but the extraordinary Team process by which a mission unfolds and is executed and which may or may not bear a relationship to the reality past and present.

Thirdly is the morality or more accurately the immorality of the work which leads to individuals questioning and changing sides.

Having explored aspects of the internal machinations of those directly involved in the day to day management of the service in the previous work Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Le Carré now explores the interaction between the service and the rest of Whitehall and the Cousins, the Americans in addition to his preoccupation, some would say obsession with Karla and the Russians. And of course now there are the Chinese what are they up to next?

The difference between Jerry Westerby and the other Le Carré Agent with whom I previously identified with, Alec Lomas, portrayed brilliantly by Richard Burton in the film of the same name, is that Jerry is that rare combination of being upper class, Eton and Oxford, a genuine intellectual wild man of action more at home with Hemingway than C P Snow where one can find the Smiley or two.

Lomas was willing to go to prison and then to be captured and tortured by the enemy because of his anti communist commitment, he drank more than he should and enjoyed heterosexual relationships whenever the opportunity came his way, but Alec cares what happens, feels and takes responsibility for his actions and when he finds the behaviour of both sets of master questionable and that his own side is prepared to take the life of the woman he has come to care about despite her sincere but naive political views, he says no and is also killed rather than live on with the knowledge of his role in what has happened. Jerry Westerby also questions but he has one weakness greater than the women, the drink and drugs, even the excitement of the role,-Smiley asks and Jerry will do.
Not having read The Spy who came in from the Cold I do not know if Alec Lomas was an agent or a scalphunter, that is one of those trained as assassins, to kidnap, commit burglaries and other activities outside the British Law although he appears to be more of an agent, committed to a cause he believed in

Jerry is not a killer although he can look after himself. Unlike the Bond characters that always appear to be living in the present and other similar fictitious creations one of the joys, and at times difficulties, of Le Carré writing is that he provides individuals whose past affects their present, consciously and unconsciously. To appreciate this the reading should be slow digesting and reflecting, unless you have the kind of mind, which I do not, that assimilate at a flash and continue to remember,

The story begins after Smiley has returned to patch up the pieces at the Circus, still under a cloud himself because despite his part in the unmasking of Haydon because he had worked with the man over several decades and had not reacted against the man‘s affair with his wife, affecting, it is argued, his judgement just as Karla had predicted, although this was as much his resignation that his wife needed affairs just as he needed to be at the top in at the Circus.

The Circus is under pressure to find something which will resurrect their standing although their masters in the administration and the party political government have insisted on closing down many outposts and disbanding agent chains knowing these had been compromised over the decades of the betrayal. The politicians and Mandarins would like something to impress the Cousins.

As the story opens we quickly switch from London to Hong Kong, then a Crown territory under contract from China and to be handed back before the end of the last century and into the world of the news reporters attempting to secure scoops and therefore spending as much time watching and listening to each other as they are making new contacts out there on the street and the corridors of power. They appear to spend a great part of their time at an old style colonial club, meals and drinks throughout the day and night, taking cabs to the nearest playground for girls and drugs. Up at the top although nothing like as impressive a position as in Gibraltar was the home of the UK area spooks relying on radio and telephonic communications if the era before the Internet.

Given this background of International great events and local colonialism where the people are divided between the round eyes and the slant eyes, the main interest of the newshounds seems at first parochial, trying to establish that the chief spy and his household has closed down and what did this all mean. The two characters of significance we are first introduced are Luke, a Californian Journalist, and William Craw, a man of mature years and experience if life, journalist and trusted agent for the Circus. In a joke about Watergate and Deep throat, Craw suggests they contact stripped pants Shallow Throat at the Colonial office as I suspect it was still called in a vain attempt to gain some news, at least that was the front he was putting up, pretending to his colleagues he was in the dark as much anyone. It is Craw who publishes the first exposé which Smiley commends as a masterpiece if disinformation.

We the turn to Jerry and the arrival of a telegram from Smiley, coded of course, but enough to get him to leave and abandon the bedmate only recently rescued as she traversed the globe. Young Peter Guillam is back at the top and it is often through his eyes that we appear learn about the impenetrable aging Smiley keeping his own Counsel restricting what he is prepared to reveal to individuals and times of his choosing. It takes the great part of section one of the book to establish why Jerry Westerby has been recalled and what he is to do.

The new team at the top has assembled to discuss how they should approach re-establishing the authority and integrity of the service by discovering a major source of new intelligence. Smiley had appointed a factotum assistant as he had done in Soldier Sailor. This time it is a man called Fawn, an anonymous individual who I am not sure if we ever learn anything of his background. Peter appears something of a fetcher and carrier to but accompanies Smiley to important meetings. Connie Sacks is back from her Oxford retirement, endearingly referring to everyone out in the field as her dear boys but remains the great Soviet analyst together with the less attractive Doc di Salis, another Circus Burrower, an expert on China although I am not sure why he as brought in before the direction everyone would take is established. Also early on Smiley consulted Sam Collins an older field officer, described as dapper, something of a dandy with a moustache and smoking brown cigarettes. He was an Asian field hand with 5 years in Borneo, 6 in Burma and 5 in North Thailand before 3 years in Vientiane, the capital of Laos who gained what is described as a dazzling first at Cambridge. If anything this will become the Sam Collins story as much as that of Westerby or Smiley, but I give too much away and would never have been a good spy for this reason alone.

In jargon the Burrowers were asked to look for Karla backbearings, to go over everything that happened which traitor Bill Haydon had a hand in and try and detect where he may have covered up something which he did not wish pursued or given important or ongoing attention. Files that should have been there but were not, people told not to bother or to disregard what today looked as if it required greater attention. This was Connie’s great strength as she knew more than anyone, including Smiley the minutiae of the Karla’s signature, his trade craft. And it was as a consequence of her efforts that requests were made for records from the one of the remaining outposts in the Far East, Ventiane the capital of Laos.

What was discovered was that Russian money, large qualities of money, $25000 a month (1970’s value) was being passed through a complex route ton Honk Kong where it accumulated as a trust and had not been touched todate and this then led to an eminent married Chinese business Drake Ko OBE, a man vetted before confirming is honour and with the kind of standing that when the Governor, (respectfully referred by the journalists as Big Moo), invited local bigwigs in for an informal get together to learn what was actually afoot or of concern in he colony, Ko was always included on the guest list. That he is called Drake is a clue to his background which was revealed much later. He has a beautiful ‘round eye’ mistress and the investigation of her background also becomes crucial to unravelling why the money was being sent and why it was not touched.

It was Jerry Westerby’s role to return to his old job in Hong Kong to find out about Ko and his English mistress with a German Christian name, Liese Worth and the significance of her other names.

Jerry discovers that Ko had a son who died and later we learn was called Nelson, with Nelson and Drake big clues as to the man’s back ground which includes a spell in London reading for the Bar and also that among the charities supported is a Baptist Church and a Hospital for children which bears his name. He is also into horse racing and has had a successful animal called Lucky Nelson. It is at the racetrack at Westerby engineers an introduction to Ko for an interview. We not learn much except he had come as refugee from the mainland
Before further action can be taken the authority of the ‘masters’ has to be agreed and Peter accompanies Smiley to present his case to a committee with the Foreign Office team (with interests in Russia and China and the rest of the Far East excluding Hong Kong) by Saul Enderby one time Ambassador to Indonesia and his right hand every day link man with the Circus, Roddy Martindale plus a Parliamentary Under Secretary sitting at one end of the table.

At the other end, significantly, is the three person team from the Colonial Office, whose interest is Hong Kong and regarded themselves as superior because they actually managed territories but in reality it is the Foreign Office which has the ear of the Cabinet Office and Oliver Lacon who sits apart but opposite from Smiley and Guillam, with ‘the Competition’ that is the home security services directly across. The Defence Ministry had two and the Treasury a similar number also facing the applicants.

Le Carré provides what I can assert is a good description of all such type of meetings are made to a collective of varied and often competing interests, each jockeying for position, some playing a short, while others a longer, game and where most of the positioning and decision taking takes place in bilateral deals beforehand. How far should Circus be allowed to go and within what bounds and funding? What should the Governor be told if anything and what of the Cousins, the Americans?

One thing was agreed early on that if there was a go ahead and the UK got it hands on the half million of Russian money in the Hong Kong Trust Fund it would go to the Treasury in total. It was not this form of Gold that Smiley was after, he sensed there was something big because Karla’s view was people should work and contribute to the cause because of its rightness and therefore the sum of such a size meant it covered something of great significance. The problem was that Smiley was caught in a Catch 22. The panel wanted to know what the very big was before investing while e Smiley also wanted to know but needed the funds and the approval to find out. One of the cards played by Smiley was to point out that under his standing instruction to give priority to repairing the damage with the Cousins if the panel decided not to further the line of inquiry as some favoured he would be obliged to pass on what he had established to date to the Cousin and let them investigate and therefore take any Glory which emerged creating further embarrassment that British intelligence had not only been compromised but was unable to act when important new information became available. They could be further damned if they went ahead and just as badly damaged if they did not.

Guillam thought George then overplayed his hand by asking for the recently closed Hong Kong residency to be opened not knowing that this was the master stroke of a ploy because in turning down something that was not needed it would provide several interests with the belief they had gained their way and a sense of testosterone victory while George got the authority to go ahead as asked but with some limitations and restrictions, most of which he had assumed would be imposed beforehand.

This brings me to an earlier development, the attempt to find out about the former bed partner of Ko’s present mistress Liese Worth; this was a Mexican pilot involved with the Ko funded Air freight and transport company based in Ventiane. A man called Tiny Ricardo.

Sam Collins sources declared the man had died but Smiley wanted this double checked with the Americans through a probationer Burrower who had immediately caught Peter Guillam’s hungry eye, Molly Meakin, an Oxbridge blue stocking recruit whose family were old Circus and whose function as a desk officer in Registry also involved a routine meeting with the Cousins every Friday in which they exchanged lists of information required if available. This was to prove a key to unlocking the support of the Cousins while agreeing that Hong Kong remained the UK patch, although it has to be said that this was what Smiley was also led to believe at the time.

It was another seasoned campaigner whose lectures back at the Training centre in the UK always attracted good audiences, William Craw who unlocked the fact that Liese Worth was in fact Elizabeth Worthington. This led to finding that she had not just a husband but a child back home but she had left one day and there had been no contact there after. But she also had parents called Pelling her birth surname, and this led to a visit from Smiley saying he had been asked to vet her background because she was under consideration for an important position in an international company. She had ambition to make something of her life beyond that offered by her family and answered an advert which led to being a hostess in Bahrain. She had ended up in Far East claiming to be working undercover for the British Secret service working for a distillery company with a concession which she managed in Laos based in its capital Ventiane. It was evident from the couple as the story unfolded that her father wanted to believe his daughter while his wife thought this was just another set of stories in which she tried to pretend what she was not. In Ventiane she was living with pilot Tiny, a big man. She was working for someone called Mellon insisted the husband. The father also had to hand the last letter she had sent to them explaining that she was working for a good cause and they would be proud of her, On arrival she had to contact a Mr Mackervoor of the British Council who was an established trader but only half the story. As she was to investigate a situation concerning drugs and bullion which she had been told not to talk about to anyone and the work could be dangerous and she did not know what the outcome would be or when she would be able to have contact with them again and end asking them to pray for her.

Now Smiley would have known what the name Mackervoor meant because I had read in connection with the work of the Circus in the Far East, of this name of an agent called Mackervoor who had since died Smiley then went and had a secret chat with Mrs Pelling who had left the room tired of the attempt by her partner to rewrite the history of their daughter in the most favourable light. She revealed that her daughter had gone to the Chinaman(Ko) to help Tiny and had fallen in love with him and that he had become a father figure to her.

There was one more startling piece of information revealed to the reader when Smiley returned to office and made a check with confirmed that Mellon was the name which his agent Sam Collins used when in that part of the world. I am sure it is later in the novel that the reader is informed that Sam had dropped her because she could not keep quiet about working for the Service and therefore endangering his position and that of the others involved in the immediate area.

Sam was able to confirm that the girl had arrived in Ventiane with a couple of hippies on the Kathmandu trail and when they departed, she had gone to the British Consul for help and he had put her in touch with Sam because he thought on looks alone she was exploitable. He had placed her alongside the flying boys so to speak because of interest in the drug situation and had not told London because London via Haydon was killing off all activity. He had found a way of paying he woman and she had come up with Ricardo and a bullion racket which led back to Hong Kong. He had dropped her as soon as he realised she was a disaster so was relieved when Ricardo got her join him with the air freight company.
This had come out because of protests from Peter about the sudden appearance of Sam at the top table and to have direct access without going through the usual channels. Smiley explained that Sam was important because he knew the Elizabeth Worthington nee Pelling. Connie reminded of what Edgar Hoover said about preferring to have someone inside the tent pissing out than the converse.

It was also shortly after this that the work of the Burrowers came up with information which brings considerable information about Drake Ko after an investigation into his time in London allegedly studying to become a barrister. He had given the name of Baptist Minister and his wife as referees and the Minister was alive and living with his daughter back in the UK. What they had to say would lead to the why the money was stacking up and being stored in Hong Kong.

It was Connie and De Salis who Smiley sent to interview the Missionary in the pretext that Ko was being considered for an honour and they needed to confirm the background. He had gone to Missionary Training school at 20 and was on ship for Shanghai when 24.

He explained that in 1936 his wife had found Drake and his young brother Nelson at the docks searching for their mother. They had founded a school for children without mothers, mostly day attenders but some borders among the 44 they were able to manage teaching the basics and Christianity. Drake was assessed as being 10 or 11 and his brother 8. Their daughter was then 12. His brother had been injured in the civil war with part of his arm bone sticking through the flesh. The two were very different with Drake accepting the Westernisation and Nelson rejecting.

Yes they had returned to China after the World War but by then he had become a widow and yes they had met up with Drake who would have married the daughter had she shown any interest her father argued. Drake had been much affected by the death of the wife of the Missionary but he and his brother had returned to speaking Chinese losing their English. The Missionaries had remained until the Communist take over in 49. It was during that time that the brothers appeared to have separated and lost contact with each other with Nelson opting for the Communists and his brother not, so it seemed. Back in Shanghai at the age of 19 the daughter accused Drake of having become a gang member and a thief while her father asserted that his main interest was get an education for his young brother. The impact of his studies was to turn Nelson firmly against the West and the Church and this had led to him being part of as group which smashed up the mission. Drake had given his brother a hiding for that.

It had taken Drake six years of working to see his brother graduate as an engineer. He had worked in the shipyards alongside the Russian technicians who had poured in since the revolution.

It was then the old man dropped his bombshell that the only news he had since being forced to return to the UK was that his brother was dead. It had happened when they were living in Durham. Drake had come to England with his an entourage including a henchman called Tiu (the Circus had established that Tiu was the front man for several of Ko’s questionable enterprises). He was 42 and the year 1967 at the time and arrived in a Rolls Royce bringing presents including £1000 for the church. He already had the OBE and said he had come to study law and wanted her father to sponsor him. They could pin down to the month because it was his father’s birthday hence the gift to the church. The daughter remembered his words. I have no brother. De Salis pressed about the circumstances, but on this they failed to obtain further information of substance. Before they left Connie was inspired when she asked if the name Liese meant anything and the answer explained more in that the Missionary’s wife had been a German Lutheran of that name.

They were driven back by Toby Easterhase with the news for Smiley. It was the Doc who set about trying to uncover the Chinese name which it was evident that Nelson had used to establish if in fact like the son of Ko of the same name, he was also dead.

But before this there were two developments which were to prove of subsequent great significance. The first remained a mysterious matter of concern because when Guillam went to deliver the monthly account of expenditure to Lacon at the Cabinet office he had witnessed Sam Collins emerge in conversation not only with Lacon but Saul Enderby of the Foreign Office.

The second was that Cousins wanted an urgent meeting and when they arrived they were met not just by the CIA but by a representative of the Drug Enforcement Agency in the US. The purpose of the meeting was ostensibly to report on the latest activities of Ko and Tiu but eventually they got round to admitting that Tiny Ricardo was not dead. Ricardo had made contact with a regional Narcotics bureaux offering to sell and tell info about an opium mission into China and led to one of great historically truths being admitted by the US in this fictional form.

During the US involvement in Laos they had needed the support of hill tribes in the combat and these tribes survived on a single economy of opium growing which the CIA had turned a blind eye to. The Narcotics Bureaux was less sanguine about what had taken place “The company played Godfather to the hill tribes.... Menfolk were fighting while the Company people flew up to the villages, pushed their poppy crops, screwed their women and flew their dope.” Despite the protestation of the CIA man, the Narcotics contact continued “ as long as the war was on Ricardo carried dope for the CIA to keep the home fires burning in he hill villages. When the war ended he carried on the trade for himself. He had all the connects and knew where the bodies were buried. They admitted that the call from Tony Ricardo had been logged on the second of April 1973. He was offering opium at the standard rates and wanted $50000 and a German Passport for a one way exit in exchange for his information involving mainland China. Ricardo went to explain that the plane used was a Bechcraft which was kept hidden, off the books. In addition to buying the opium some 200 kilos the local agent had sent the story to HQ. At HQ the senior manager took the decision that he could not invest that amount of public money in a gamble especially where the individual supplying the info wanted a one way ticket to disappear into Europe or wherever. There was no further action taken. The only other information was that the China contact had been prepared to pay gold in exchange for the opium said to have been just less than half a ton. The name of the contact was to have been revealed once Ricardo’s price was being paid.

It was then the battle commenced between the Narcotics Enforcement who wanted hands on control of what happened next and the CIA who accepted that as the centre of enquires was a British territory, it was for the Brits to take the lead. My background note is to remind of the hatred that had existed between Russia and China and which had carried through despite both nations becoming communist led politically and economically. It is also worth reminding that the generally held view by nations that it is was important to spy on ones friends as on enemies because tomorrow friends can become enemies and vice versa. In World War II Russia joined Germany and then they went to war with each other, and reminding of the fictional TV Series Spooks where because the UK is hold discussion with Russia about sharing intelligence information, it is the Yanks who appear to be spiking the development, killing a British agent in the process.

The Le Carré allegation being that the Russians were providing the gold to supply their contact in China with the opium to be used to subvert the Chinese. Smiley commented that it was take a lot more opium to subvert the 800 million Chinese on the mainland at that time. The Narcotics man wanted control reminding the CIA that back home a lot of influential people wanted to know how come their boys in Vietnam had become drug addicts. Smiley reminded of the agreement that the US would not interfere in British action in Hong Kong without explicit prior permission. The CIA agreed but then slapped a time limit of three months, probably less.

Smiley demanded to know how far up in the chain information has been passed on and it was admitted they knew there was an individual in Hong Kong who was receiving Russian money and was involved in flying opium to China. Smiley wanted to know if they knew about the girl. There was knowledge that the girl had been with Ko in Bangkok and onto Manila.

The next priority for the team was tracing the aircraft as well as the ongoing search for Nelson, if he continued to exist with Ricardo appearing to be alive in Ventiane. They were able to trace a brand new Bechcraft sale to a firm based in Bangkok and but was then immediately sold on. Smiley then held a conference with those actively involved concluding that they appeared to have gone as far as possible and that given the set time limit they need to upset the present balance and this would be achieved by Jerry Westerby. Sam Collins then disappeared, it was believed retired with enhanced pension rates. Guillam who disliked Sam was less convinced of this, as he revealed constantly to his latest woman Molly Meakin, especially after than meeting where he had encountered Sam with the bigwigs. This ends the first book of the story, although combined into one volume

Le Carré and Smiley (1)

I have been fascinated and enthralled by the world of Intelligence, homeland and foreign, factual and fictional since first becoming the subject of investigation in 1960 and 1961 but have so far resisted the temptation to seek access to my file under Freedom of Information now that 50 years has passed by. I went full circle signing the Official Secrets Act in the mid 1980’s and being briefed when undertaking work under secondment for the Department of Health.

I have always had a soft spot for the Home Office whose Cabinet Minister commands Homeland security in association with Number 10 and the Ministry of Defence and one of the great joys and sense of achievement was to be allocated a car parking space at the former building at Green Park when visiting as a member of a national sub committee. It was the Home Office that fixed my child care place and provided the funds and where one of its regional officers took me out to lunch and advised on the best approach if I wanted to become a local authority chief officer, although in fairness I do not think telling Sir Keith Joseph where I stood politically in terms of national commitments and international politics when he was my dinner guest at the first BASW national family and child care conference did any harm when it came to confirming my appointment as a Director of Social Services three years later.

(The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 (Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of the intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). All come under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The service has a statutory basis in the Security Service Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994. Its remit includes the protection of British parliamentary democracy and economic interests, counter-terrorism and counter-espionage within the UK. Although mainly concerned with internal security, it does have an overseas role in support of its mission. Conversely, to ensure that the Home Secretary is responsible for intelligence operations within the UK, the Service may act on behalf of SIS and GCHQ even if the operation is outside its own functions (SIS and GCHQ report to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) ref Wikipedia.

The headquarters of the services has been at Millbank on the North side of the Thames and became familiar to me on my lunch time walks along the bank of the Thames when on leaving school at sixteen I became a junior clerk at the seven story office building of Middlesex County Council now occupied by Random House Publishers at Vauxhall Bridge and within metres of the iconic purpose designed building of the British Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as M16 situated on the Southside of the Thames across the Bridge.

My fascination and therefore knowledge has been restricted to fiction writing, films and television and this piece is sparked by seeing the film Tinker Tailor and not agreeing with the rave notices and predictions of awards. I decided to re read the novel and see the film again later in the morning after listening to the Mark Kermode appraisal on the BBC 5 live pod cast yesterday evening and recommendation that to appreciate its value a second visit is worthwhile. I agree there are several excellent performances but I know where the film fails, for me, that is, I am not emotionally engaged. In part because of familiarity but the film fails to make me care.

I can still watch the film of the Le Carré book which brought him success, The Spy who came in from the Cold and still be as moved as I was when I saw the film in theatre and understood the decision of Richard Burton as Lomas not to walk away from his girl friend of a short while, knowing that she was already dead at his feet. I saw the film again about a year ago and yesterday. I still enjoy seeing the Tailor of Panama another Le Carré film which was inspired by another master writer of the intelligence world Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana and where I have ten of his works. Michael Caine also continues to engage with the Ipcress file, Funeral in Berlin and the Million Dollar Brian, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg, all films and more recently the BBC production with Bill Nighy in Page Eight (recently reviewed). There is also Callan with Edward Woodward.

My other moan is that the film is shot in 1940’s and 1950’s Brown although my memory is that there was as much green as brown with my main point being that Le Carré set the trilogy in the 1970’s.

I have six John Le Carré novels including the three Karla works, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smile’s People with the first and last made into brilliant TV series with Sir Alec Guiness and Smiley and a radio production of the Honourable Schoolboy because the cost of TV series shot in the Far East was considered too great. There are eight works involving Smiley and in 2009/10 the BBC created new plays and serials featuring all 8 of his works and where the series is available on CD’s as a package around £65 from the original cost of £100.

I also have the Russia House, The Constant Gardiner and Mission Song. I have video tapes of the two great BBC TV series which featured Sir Alec Guiness in the role of George Smiley, Tinker Tailor and Smile’s people. I have found the TV Tape of Smile’s people but not that of Tinker Tailor.
I have always liked George Smiley although he has a very different personality to my own. George is old school in every sense, public school and Oxford but not from one those grand schools or colleges which turn out individuals who seek to become Presidents of the Union, enter the House and do a spell as Prime Minister, become a leading Judge, run a City Bank or major international corporation. We do not know anything about the relationship with his parents, except they were middle class from the South of England and therefore if his personality and approach to life followed them or was in reaction to one or both of them.

George likes to be in the background, methodical and with an academic insistence on establishing facts and proofs. He is not without ambition and the psychological management profiling he comes out as a traditional chairman, sitting back listening, overseeing, reflecting and then calmly announcing what is to be done and why. He has one obvious weakness, his wife Anne and in which instance he reminds of C P Snow’s Lewis Elliot in his sequence of novels, of which I have nine, featuring academic life in Oxford and work for the Government in the time of War. Smiley would have done well as the Master of an Oxford College or as a senior Don doing interesting jobs for the Government.

Smiley and Lewis Elliot bear their wives as if a cross with Smile’s wife, inexplicably in someone ways, standing out, beautiful, high maintenance she would be described these days and prone to great sexual passions but returning to George for comfort when these go awry. Her full name is Lady Ann Sercombe, aristocratic and confident working as a secretary with the Circus which she decided that George would provide her with the security she needed from which to enjoy her libido. With more self control she would have become a femme fatale Mata Hari field agent or Scalphunter used by Le Carré for his special agents.
There are only a dozen of these based at a former school in Brixton. They work alone, are trained to try and survive interrogation and will what is required to complete he task they are set whatever their personal misgivings.

We know that George was recruited to MI6 by his tutor in the later 1920’s although given his personality I speculate he would have been more comfortable with the separate homeland security people, the guardians of the guardians for the Home Secretary and Number 10.

In the days of Smiley, Graham Green and Ian Fleming the location and identities of the Service was kept confidential although the London HQ was not at Cambridge Circus as in the Le Carré work hence the references to the Circus. I imagine those now working at today’s actual location will refer to the Cross, the Bridge or the Centre just as the chief was known as the Controller. Although as with MI5 the name of the chief is published these days. The Service is officially under the control of the Foreign Secretary with agents of all countries rationally placed in Embassy’s because Diplomatic privileges including immunity. There will be someone with appropriate clearance working at the Cabinet Office acting as a bridge between all the pasts of the security and intelligence services and the PM as well as Individual Ministers with the need to know.

There 3200 individuals listed as employees of MI5 but as with all aspects of MI5 work, such information will only be disclosed to those with the highest security clearances, possibly not even the Parliamentary Security Committee. Le Carré has 600 agents recruit from within the countries where they operate with 120 in Russia which suggests that pro rata he should have assumed several times more operating within the UK and her territories although much of the rest of the world misguidedly believes that the power of the UK is overrated, although not by the Chinese who according to a published quote from my local Member of Parliament when Foreign Secretary they are impressed by our ability to punch above our weight.

We know that George learned his job working South America and central Europe and that his knowledge of German led him to establishing networks in the country before the declaration of the War posing as a lecturer and also working in Switzerland and Sweden described by his superiors as having the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin.

In 1943, he was recalled to England to work at MI6 headquarters, and married Anne after the war when because of the problem which followed he left the service but was recalled with the establishment of the Cold War with the Soviets. In the 1950’s his job was counter intelligence which included trying to turn individuals working for the enemy and it was then that he met Karla his Russian nemesis who took his lighter, a gift from Anne to prove his machismo but also out of respect.

According to Wikipedia Smiley first appears in a Call for the Dead, le Carré's debut novel. At the start of the novel, set around 1960, Smiley has fallen from grace and is working in a relatively menial intelligence job, including security-clearing civil servants. He spends much of the story bemoaning the loss of the talented agents who were his mentors and their replacement by talentless civil-service bureaucrats, such as the current head of service, Maston, who refers to himself as the "Minister's Advisor for Intelligence" and is widely, if secretly, mocked. During this book, Smiley retires to unravel an East German spy ring but remains retired and investigates a murder at a fictional public school in le Carré's next novel, A Murder of Quality.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his third novel, propelled le Carré to international renown. Smiley is a minor character in the story, but a pivotal one. He is supposedly still retired but is revealed during the story to be back in the Circus as one of the top aides to "Control". The book is set against the background of the Berlin Wall It is book which also introduced Peter Guillam as loyal to Control and to Smiley in a plot which results in the head of East German Intelligence being dethroned by his deputy, a double agent, with the help of Lomas.

Smiley is said to have only a brief involvement in the Looking Glass War, a work I know little about.

He then becomes the right hand man of Control incurring the resentment of the ambitious Percy Alleline and his main support the ‘playboy’ Bill Haydon both with a similar background to Control and Smiley, with Brand having been in the field in the Soviets because of his Community working class father, but who had nevertheless got to Grammar school and Oxford from where Smiley had recruited him. Finally there is Easterhase, again recruited by Smiley working in a Museum in central Europe with the kind of loyalty that serves the masters who ever they are, right or left. This is the situation in which the Karla trilogy begins with Tinker Tailor.

The book and the latest film, and from memory the TV series all cover the same basic plot with variations and different approaches.

It all begins in 1972 when Jim Prideaux a Scalphunter (licence to kill) is sent on a secret mission into a Soviet controlled territory, in the book to Czechoslovakia (Checko) and in the film to Budapest- Hungary, where a general wants to defect. It is however a trap arranged by the Spymaster Karla to kidnap the field agent to try and established if anything is known about his double agent at the top of the Circus and to finish the position of Control and replace him by someone more easily manipulated. Jim was recruited from Oxford by Bill Haydon because his childhood had been central European and his capacity to speak several of the languages. He was sent by Control on the understanding that he did not mention the mission to anyone else at the Centre. The asylum seeking contact offered military and political information and more significantly, the name of the traitor within the inner circle of Control- codename Merlin.

In the book and the film Jim is shot twice but the circumstances are very different and in this respect the film does well. The evidence is that his visit was anticipated. He is held and interrogated over several months but then repatriated. Smiley had been unaware of the mission and learned only what had happened after returning home and then going to the Centre. However because of the closeness to Control and the threat he poses to Merlin, he is forced out with Control.

On his return to England Toby Easterhase gives Prideaux an immediate £1000 until his official pension came through and told him to become a Lotus Easter. He joins a minor public school with a caravan drawn by an Alvis car also given to him as parting gift on behalf of the Circus. What happened to him and why is crucial to plot and in several ways this is in fact the story of him and also Ricki Tarr.

Ricki Tarr is also a Scalphunter sent to Turkey on a mission to bring back the head of trade mission but quickly determines that this is not a prospect but his emotional and vulnerable wife is, especially after Ricki beds her. Again there are different accounts between book and film and in the order of the revelations. She also says she has information which will affect the future of the Circus which Ricky passes to the centre who presses him for more. The girl then disappears and Tarr finds that she has been secreted back to Moscow. He finds her diary in one version which discloses about the Mole at the centre and he goes on the run to where he has a woman and child. It is Tarr that spurs Oliver Lacon the Cabinet office security coordinator and his Minister to ask Smiley to come out of his enforced retirement and investigate using Peter Guillam the trusted organiser of the Scalphunters at the Brixton former school house (since the reorganisation) to bring Smiley to see them and find out what is what.

It is in this book carried foreword to the TV and film that Le Carré makes Smiley a generation younger in order to prolong his working life and makes Guillam a young man when before this he had joined the Circus with Smiley.

Smiley sets up a base at a private hotel with self contained flatlets, a short distance from Paddington Station, and asks Peter to obtain readily available information for him from the Circus but then more secure records, warning that if caught Peter has to deny any involvement. He wants Peter to first provide him with information on all those who left service following the resignation and death of control, who was dying prior to the failed mission to learn the identity of the Mole.

This leads him Smiley finding that Jim Prideaux survived, was repatriated and then sent to become a Lotus Easter, He also finds that the Control research assistant Connie Sachs was also sent away because it was claimed she had become too fanciful and needed to go back to the real world. It is through Tarr, Prideaux and Sachs that Smiley is able to work out the mystery of who is the Mole and the whys and whats. He visits the home of Control and finds the chess pieces which had carried the small photos of the senior members of the Circus -, Alleline, Haydon, Bland Easterhase and Smiley and which excluding himself narrow the number to four -Tinker, Tailor Soldier etc.

As with all such situations the Russian spy plan is long ranged determined once the Mole has been established, in this instance a willing recruit who disliked that happened to the UK following the end of World War II and the giving up of the Empire. He and others have argued that Britain was finished as a world power and the Traitor decided he could make a difference to the future by working for the Soviets.

One of the better features of the film is the decision to use a Christmas party at Circus to provide flashbacks. It id a cinematic device showing that with hindsight all the indications of what was to come were there. Someone in face mask of Stalin (Brand I think) arrives in Santa clothing and a sack of present giving, and leads everyone in a Chorus of the Russian National Anthem, one of the great stirring anthems in the world and of which their are 30 recordings available on the Internet Russian Anthem Museum to listen too including that of the Moscow’s Children’s choir and a Rock version. While it is playing Smiley discovers the relationship between his wife and Bill Haydon and we the audience note that there is a special relationship between Bill and Prideaux played by King’s Speech Academy award winner Colin Firth and also the excellent Mark Strong.

Given that Le Carré based his British double agent on Guy Burgess who was part of a homosexual ring it is interesting that the book only makes veiled references noting towards the end that Prideaux is in love with Haydon and young Guillam who in the book is a notorious womaniser is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbach as a homosexual who when Smiley becomes worried that the Mole will react as the net closes persuades him to give up his live in relationship with a school master who is sent packing, for the man’s protection rather than his own.

The plan involved placing a contact on the staff of the Soviet Embassy in London, officially a Cultural attaché who becomes exceptional at his job. He is spotted by Connie Sachs when she sees film of a parade in which the attaché is saluted by a General which meant that he must have held an important and senior role in the Military and is in fact a wartime hero. It is when Connie played by Kathy Burke, in the film, spots this discrepancy and reports to her new superiors that she is quickly pensioned off. The character of Connie is based on Millicent Bagot 1907-2006 who as Soviet expert working for MI5 advised that Kim Philby (MI6) had been a member of the Communist Party. She was awarded the MBE and CBE.

In order to ensure that someone suitable replaces Control, played by John Hurt in the film, and to further the plan to gain access to USA intelligence, they arrange for the attaché, Polyakov, to offer to provide high level intelligence information in exchange for British information. Both sides in effect start to officially provide low level information to each other “chicken feed” mixed in with some more important stuff, with the Soviet information sufficient to attract the interest of the USA who had become hesitant about too close involvement because of early double spy scandals. However in addition to this the Merlin continues to provide any information which is useful to Moscow as he has been doing throughout most of his time at the Circus.

The exchange of information is called “Witchcraft” and is put to Lacon and the appropriate government Minister by Alleline, Haydon and co during the time that Control has become ill.

Percy Alleline his official number 2 has always carried a resentment since he was a undergraduate pupil of Control and was not rated by his tutor and once put in charge he pressed the Minister via Lacon to approve sharing the info with the Cousins- the USA.

What emerges is that Prideaux had warned Haydon of his secret mission although Karla-Polyakov- Haydon had picked the Czech General to defect knowing that this would ensure that Czech background and speaking Prideaux would be sent. In the film his shooting is not planned hence the efforts of the new Director of Operations- Haydon to gain his release home. Haydon learns of the development when staying with Anne while Smiley is returning from Berlin. The Wrangler - wireless operator and cryptographer on duty had advised Control who had become frozen and unwilling to advise how the situation should be dealt with. The Wrangler had then rang Smiley’s home and Ann had answered and then advised her lover who had gone to get things organised at the Circus, but then returned to greet Smiley pretending to have brought a painting for Anne which he said she liked but also as additional cover for his position.

The unexpected development which stops the Russian play from being effective is the relationship with Ricki Tarr established with the wife of the Trade Mission leader to Turkey and his finding out about the existence of the traitor.

Smiley asks Guillam to risk his position by getting hold of a copy of the Diary record of urgent calls (flash) which shows the missing pages deleted, and during the successful attempt he is called to the top floor to be cross examined by the new regime over his recent contact with Ricki Tarr. He makes light of the request without knowing that Tarr is in the UK and it is his evidence which has created the current investigation. When he finds Tarr with Smiley he has come to believe that Tarr is the renegade and that the story of the Mole is a fabrication created to try and save his own skin. He is disabused of this by Smiley.

It is Tarr that is asked to spring the trap by going to Paris where the local man was responsible for his training. He sends a message saying that he has information important about the future of the Circus. He gets a message back requiring more information which is the anticipated reaction. In London Toby Easterhase has been confronted with the reality of his position that he has become a willing pawn to a Russian inspired double agent plot. He readily yields the location of the secret safe house approved by the Minister and this enables the placed to be examined and prepared for Smiley to wait inside with his team first keeping watch on the Circus and see the assembling of the trio, Alleline, Haydon and Bland, Easterhase having been told to take the time off in advance of the trap. Those unaware of what happens in the book or TV series have to wait before finding out which of the three is the traitor, who we are told is arriving at the Safe House.

We overhear a conversation in which Polyakov reminds of his protected status as a member of the Embassy staff adding however that on recall he will be sent to Siberia because of the failure of the mission while Haydon can be expected to be treated with honour on his expulsion to Moscow.

Smiley enjoys putting the boot in on the Minister who sacked him and in turn is asked to take over on an interim basis in order to sort out the mess.

Alleline is sent on permanent gardening leave.

Tarr goes off to meet up with his son and the child’s mother, but he had also wanted Smiley to negotiate the return of Irina the woman who revealed the existence of a Mole to him. However we know she had been killed along with her husband.

Prideaux reveals to Smiley who visits the school what happened to him after his capture and how he had held out for as long a she could before revealing the concern of Control about a Mole. He is shocked to learn that all the operatives in Hungry/Checko were rounded up and executed but in the book it is explained that this was arranged in advance, He seeks revenge after learning that the traitor was Haydon who he had told of his secret mission when ordered not to do so

Connie returns to help Smiley and Guillam is advanced to the top floor.

I leave till last the meeting of Smiley with Bill at the Training centre in Yorkshire where he is held. This was at Haydon’s request before going to Russia. He asked Smiley to pass on money for his current woman who has a baby. He will provide for them but Smiley is asked to emphasise that the break will be a final one. It is at this point Haydon admits his bi-sexuality asking Smiley to pass on a couple of hundred pounds from the Reptile fund to keep his mouth shut! I forget why the fund is called as it is.

The Housekeepers are the Internal auditors; the Inquisitors- the interrogations, that is an easy one; the Janitors - the Operation staff at the Circus; the Lamplighters - not easy, those who provide surveillance and act as couriers; Mothers- secretaries and trusted typists serving senior officers at the Circus and who are regarded as good bed mates by the Scalphunters and those of similar personality at the centre; Nuts and Bolts, the technology providers of the day; Pavement Artists- those who follow targets in the street; Shoemakers- Forgers of documents; Babysitters, easy one - Bodyguards and Burowers- Researchers recruited direct from University with Gold and Treasure- high quality intelligence offered or gained.

And then there is Ann and where Haydon admits it was Karla’s idea for him to seduce because he regarded Smiley as the main threat to plan and that by having the affair it would help to keep Smiley from seeing Bill as he was. He admits he has seduced many Ann’s to gain information and further his position.

Bill then argues that at least he made his mark on the world which Smiley find contemptible.

Hating the situation more by the minute Smiley leaves and drives fast to Oxford for lunch. He then goes to the pictures and has a meal out on his own arriving home a little drunk at midnight only to find Lacon together with the Minister Miles Sercombe--yes related to Ann, Smiley’s wife but I cannot remember how, and they drive off all the way back to Sarratt because the body of Bill has been found there. His neck Broken. We are left to assume it is Prideaux because for the rest of the term he is in bad spirits cheered up by Bill Roach the boy loner he takes up after his arrival as a newboy. Prideaux cheers up as the term ends with the help of Roach. In the film Prideaux cuts the strings with Roach telling him to become normal and play with other boys. We then see Prideaux shoot Haydon dead at a distance with a riffle with the two looking intently at each other and the expression on Haydon’s face inviting him to get on with it.

Gently by the Shore and Gently Down the Stream

Alan Hunter was a prolific writer of police detective fiction with 46 books about Inspector George Gently of Scotland Yard who commenced as a mature officer and who managed to continue working from 1944 to 1999, although I not know if the later novels were set in the past. The BBC commissioned or bought four mini series of self contained dramas after seeing the pilot in 2007. Apart from 2009 when there were four episodes there have been two in the other three years, 11 in total.

Inspector Gently is no Wallander although Martin Shaw as Gently is as good as Kenneth Branagh, an actor who made his national name through the TV series of the Professionals as Raymond Doyle with Lewis Collins as Broadie and Gordon Sinclair as their CI5 boss George Cowley and a long way from Spooks. Doyle was recruited from the ranks of the police and later he was to star in the last three years of the series The Chief (Constable) and a long running battle with the Home Office. From this he graduated to a Judge, Judge John Deed and to more battles this time with Justice Department officials and Politicians who hated his independent mind and tendency to achieve the truth and Justice. So there is logic that he should also perform in the role as a confident, thoughtful successful villain catcher of the novels.

The novels are set in East Anglia and the Broads whereas the TV series was moved to the North East with the recent series set in the city of Durham although the County headquarters has long been located on a site on the outskirts of the city along with County Hall.

In Gently Upside Down the episode appears to be set in the 60-70’s era when young girls first started to wear colourful skirts and a regional TV show featured young people dancing to the latest records. Three young women become part of an audience where the director and his camera has a penchant for attempt find out if the girls are wearing knickers, something for which a national TV series achieved notoriety before attention was directed to Pan’s People. There was a TV rock and pop show in the North East but some two decades later called the Tube which featured a host of regional bands some from the North East who went onto national and some to International fame. In the Gently programme the director/producer takes a liking to one of the three friends and finds her frank and direct approach life in keeping with the changing times and moves her in as hostess forcing the aging professional and Lethario to throw in the towel and move back to London. In the North East The Tube was the starting point for Muriel Gray, Leslie Ash and more significantly Paula Yates other with Jules Holland as with the Tube, the TV show in episode becomes national

Now to the ploy having already mentioned three suspects for the murder of an exceptionally bright sixth former destined to Oxford who had disappeared with a small suitcase and whose body is discovered in shall grave in woodland.

There are six possible suspects for Gently to sort out in total. The producer director of the show in his thirties but with a definite eye for the girls. Then there is the former host also with a reputation for inviting the participating young females for a drink after the show and where there is evidence of an exchange of notes written on a beer glass mat between him and the deceased. He makes no secret of trying it on with the lasses at every opportunity but admits the murdered girl had knocked him back with her clever wit.

The third possibility is another bright girl at the school and friend rival of the dead girl. She is found to have lied about the evening of the disappearance claiming to have gone to the show with the third friend but had not done so. The fourth suspect is the music teacher as again it is shown that his alleged alibi of being at home with his wife and children is not so. However it is eventually established he was having an affair with the young woman offered a career in the TV show and alleged friend of the deceased.

The fifth suspect is the working class miner father of the girl who is shown to have lost his temper and hit the girl in the mouth the night she disappeared. There is the dark suggestion of an illicit relationship although he and his wife argued that they failed to understand or be able to communicate with their amazing daughter who lived in her world, with an ability to quote poetry lines to suit most situations and conversational exchanges. His frustration comes from never having had the opportunity for an education and to express his poetic soul, something which is revealed when his wife insists that he reads out what he wrote when their daughter was born.

This then brings the most likely suspect, the older English teacher of the girl and father of the young woman launched on a TV career. He becomes the chief suspect when it is discovered that over a decade before he had a relationship with a sixth form pupil of ability who now undertakes menial work as a single parent supporting her bright secondary school attending son. It is established that he did have a relationship with the dead girl and was the father of her unborn child and that the girl had packed the case with a view to moving into with the school master who wife had taken her life from mental troubles leaving her husband to bring up their two daughter, an elder daughter by many years who acted as house keeper to the rest of the family.

Yes and she did it. The girl had called at the home knowing the father and younger daughter were out to announce her intentions to the older sister/housekeeper and in effect to say she proposed to become step mother to a woman several years old. The depressed daughter perhaps taking after her mother had snapped and killed the girl unintentionally and then father full of remorse but also minded to protect his career, had attempted to bury the girl and deny any knowledge of what happened.

The format of this episode is similar to one of the early novels, the third in the series, Gently Down the Stream. As in the TV series Gently has an assistant, a sergeant. In the novel Dutt the assistant appears colourless, does a lot of hard work which brings rewards but never is able to put two and two together. In the TV series the assistant is not a likeable character. He messed up his marriage and fails as a bachelor now about Town. He is prepared to cross the line, breaking in to premises without a warrant and roughing up prisoners. He is an unlikely police detective. Another aspect of the book compared to the TV series is that the characters tend to be stock and one dimensional. Moreover I worked out who did it, and who therefore did not by page 65 of the 248.

A business man who can afford a Chauffer Cook, Housemaid and Gardener is identified as the victim of a fire on a one birth boat on the broads at the end of week’s hire. Gently is brought in when the pathologist determines that the man was shot and died before the fire. Gently discovers the man had hired the boat with his personal secretary who had disappeared and that shortly before the holiday the man had drawn several thousand pounds, a fortune at the time in the 1957 and had commenced to liquidate the business. It looked as if the couple were about to run away together although the girl and the chauffer had disappeared.

The disappearance of the chauffer suggested he had killed his employer for the money and because the man wanted to sack him because he was regarded a supporter of his legal wife who had recruited him. The young secretary was considered a possible accomplice having duped her employer.

Another possibility was the man’s son a poet and Oxford University student who did not get on with his father but he is ruled out when it is discovered he was checking on his mother because she was having an affair with the family solicitor. The daughter who is a fan of her father is unwilling to explain her full whereabouts on the evening of the murder The book portrays something of the life on the Broads, those hiring out boats and those making living in other ways.

Eventually the young woman, the secretary, is tracked down, living of her own and she attempts to take her own life and then gives the impression that she is the guilty one. But her personality and her way of life suggest otherwise and moreover there has been another murder of a woman who appears to have found something out. And who has passed on some money, money which it looks belonged to the dead man. Then of course it is worked out.

The business man is not dead and is posing as someone else in disguise. His daughter is an accomplice to the deception because she is an amateur actress. She had been accidentally discovered by the woman and she had to die also. What I do not understand is why the two did not just run off together. Everyone would have been with that.

Nearly all the novels have Gently in the title and I do not know if they feature someone else or the writer could not think of a suitable title to make a play on Gently. In Goodbye China. China is a solitary man, considered to be a tramp, who is found dead. This is not so much a dun it but you prove it and what is there to prove. We are given aspects of the truth as the episode progresses. A large young man of limited abilities living in a residential institution goes to the kitchen one night and there discovers two brothers messing abut looking for something to steal. Recognising the youth as a simpleton they tie him up take him out to a park where there is one of those old wooden roundabouts where the young man is placed and is pushed round and around as fast as possible, something that he hates.

The bullying is seen by an old man who lives in lodgings nearby overlooking what has happened and he cones down to remonstrate. The boy with mental disabilities always has with him a pack of cigarette cards, a full set which he likes to look at in their order one to 50 in rows. These falls out and the youth attempts to gather them together but one of the attackers prevents him and the old man gathers some and attempts to return them. The young man is enraged at what has happened, lashes out and the old man falls, hits his head and dies.

The boy is the only child of a local senior police officer and his wife who they usually look after but placed in the institution for the occasional night or weekend if they are away and unable keep him with them. They are devoted to the young man in other circumstances. The officer is known to Gently from their previous experience together in the Met and they have mutual high regard. The officer finds out what happened. The two attackers have become out of control of their father, a pig farmer, since their mother left home with another. They have gone off the rails since always getting into trouble with the police. But Gently finds there is no record and that the area appears to have far fewer convictions for youth crime than would be expected. The police are operating an illegal and secret corporal punishment system with the approval of parents as an alternative to the young people gaining a record.

The father had allowed the two tearaways to be taken by an assistant to a senior police officer two an approved school where one of the staff allows the boys to be held in no longer used holding cells in the basement and where are kept the instruments of birching from the time when they would be part of the sentencing of the young people. The reason why police have access is because the wife of the assistant is having an affair with the staff member.

Unfortunately the two young men refuse to be broken by the physical punishment and therefore there is continuing risk that they will reveal what happened and therefore the son could face a charge of manslaughter or be removed from their direct care because of his temper and potential danger to others. Worse still one of the young men commits suicide and his body is taken away and held at the local mortuary with a sympathetic coroner treating the case as a the death of unknown individual.

At first the assistant wants to take the blame for the involvement of his superior, He has nothing to live for as his wife is establishing a new life with the staff member the Approved school. However when she sees his willingness to take responsibility and his continuing love for her she is prepared to stand by him although he will lose his job and go to prison for his part in what has been happening. The former colleague pleads to let matters rest because if he goes to prison, his wife will not be able to cope with the son and the boy will become a permanent resident of an institution. The sergeant suggests that they do walk away but Gently arrests his friend. Gently is not the virtuous one authorising the Sergeant to break into the residence of the Pig farmer when he is not there to try and find evidence about the whereabouts of the brothers. He finds some of the cigarette cards which Gently had previously seen in a drawer when inspecting the bedroom but had not appreciated their significance until seeing the son of the former colleague playing with part of the same set of cards.

The episode ends with Gently working out where the old man had lived and spending time in his room. The man had been an informant for Gently in times past and they had become friends in the way that an Inspector can become friendly with an informant. The man was however grateful for the help that Gently had given to starting a new life.

Gently by the Shore is the second of the publish novels in the series. A body is washed up on the beach of a seaside resort and no one comes forward to identify the individual who has been stabbed four times. The reason being that he arrived in the town wearing a beard.

The local police are forced to call in Gently because of publicity about the case although they regard the matter as a routine checking of what has been done and confirmation that without any leads or identification the mystery will remain unsolved. Slowly Gently unravels a case of international intrigue.

To the amazement and denials of the local constabulary Gently uncovers that the town is the headquarters of a secret organisation bent on taking power. The chief is someone who owns the local arcade and alcoholic drinking bar frequented by low life’s and dodgy characters including a blond prostitute from London up for the holiday season with her pimp Peachey. Under threats of death she had lured the man, an American of central European background to a condemned home on the cliff which experts anticipated would fall into the sea at any moment because of coastal erosion. The murderer, a man with a facial scar, had attempted to skip the country after lying low until the publicity and the Inspector and gone away.
He is caught by the British security service who had been investigating the activities of the organisation with the help of Interpol. They were after the top man in the UK but were prepared to settle for the murderer.

Gently persuades them to release the prostitute on the basis that she and the pimp will be at risk from the boss who it is hoped will show his hand which of course he does attempting to use the same knife or kind of knife as used to kill the man on the shore. Of course there are lots of twists and turns involving several characters and a sub plot of counterfeit $100 bills with two local minor villains braking in to try and find the rest of the loot and hen being implicated in the murder by the actual villains who take back the money from where it was hidden and replacing it with the clothing of the naked man on the shore.

Gently triumphs having kept quite at a top level meeting between the local Chief Constable and team and the National security people, until the opportune moment when he reveals that he knows who the leader is and how to catch him. There is a good portrait of a season town in the early fifties.

Martin Shaw is excellent as the Inspector and the writers and directors manage to engage the audience with characters who interest so that we overlook flaws in the plots. I was not engaged in similar manner by the novels although those were the early ones and I shall try and find some of his later works especially any where the TV series has been based to come to a final conclusion.

The Game of Thrones 530-807

I have finished reading the first book of series and watched the final episodes of the first season of the TV series and reflected on the whole that I have experienced. That the TV series raised the ages of some of principal characters to make their involvement possible in the blood shedding and the sex was the right decision as has been the portrayal of these aspects in a frank and open way rather than in a self indulgent voyeurism with which Spartacus is associated. The overall story as yet to be revealed and the inherent themes are all such as make the series a memorable one and the book a worthwhile read. Having purchased the books that have been published to date I well be able to read them if for any reason the work does not continue with further Televisions productions. I am most impressed so far,

I have decided to write this final piece on the work with the notes made after the first episode of the last part of the Game of Thrones pages 531 to 616 which lived up to my anticipation and opened the news that Lord Eddard Stark keeper of the Kings Hand had not been assassinated but was incarcerated in a dungeon. His fate which I know is not a good one is yet to be determined. I will then cover the rest as has now unfolded and revealed to me as it has been to other watchers and readers.

The TV episode 8 The Pointy End concentrated on the roles of Robb the eldest legitimate child aged only fourteen years in the book but looking early to middle 20’s in the TV production as he calls those who have sworn loyalty to his father to assemble and march with him upon the forces of the Lannisters. Understandably there is concern and questioning of his abilities and leadership qualities and during an assembly at table one draws a knife and Robb’s direwolf charges and removes two of the man’s fingers. Robb comments that it was unfortunately that the dog had misunderstood the gesture as offensive when all the man intended to do with to cut his meat to which the man replied with humour that the meat was tough. This appeared to have quietened the leaders of the men, an assembly of 20000 with those of the senior Lannister alone amounting to over 20000 plus those of Jamie, not stated, those back at the capital and the motley outlaw leaders who have taken the Imp Tyrion prisoner and with whom he has cut a deal. Thus the combined forces of the Lannisters exceed those from the North.

The deal is that the men are provided with the latest weaponry and given the lands outside the castle of Lord Arryn making the wife of the former King’s Hand a prisoner in her isolated and impregnable stronghold. His father greets him with mixed feelings, surprised that he is still alive and disappointed that he was taken prisoner, so easily! Tyrion makes light of the situation but the outlaw leaders makes the point that he remains their prisoner until his father has delivered the promises that have been made by the son.

Back at the Capital the two daughters of Lord Stark go their separate ways. Sansa is delighted that Joffrey is now King and sees herself as Queen, with the Queen mother, questioning the loyalty of the girl to her future husband and regime because of the concern expressed about her father. She is asked to prove her commitment by writing letters to her mother and brothers requesting that they also commit themselves loyally to her future husband and the rule of the Lannisters.

When the Queen’s men comes for Arya she is practising with the swordsman both using wooden practice weapons and therefore no match for the men who have come for her, claiming they are send by her father. While the sword master fights she is able to escape and using all her skills decides to make her way out of the castle through the secret passageway which led her previously to outside the walls of the city. Her first idea was to go to the stables and take a horse but there a stable boy recognised her and tried to take her prisoner to gain favour with the Queen. Armed with the blade given to her by the half brother she kills the boy and finding the exits guarded on the look out for her she finds the courage to take the route which frightened her so much before and make her way to the family home. There is an excellent section when child puts to use all the teachings of the swordsman battling with her natural fears about her own and her family’s future. It is noted that when confronted by the queen Sansa makes no reference to the plight of her sister, something which is of concern to the rest of the family.

On receiving the letter from her eldest daughter Catelyn decides to go immediately the encampment of her son to try and persuade him not to be involved in the forthcoming battles, but she is proud of his determination to do so, Back at their home Bran tries to comfort his four year old younger brother that his parents and older brother will return but the child comments, that everyone including his sisters leaves and do not return, Bran goes to his mother’s favourite place by the water to reflect on the old Gods and there encounters the wilding girl who warns that his bother is marching in the wrong direction and should be moving north where the threat comes from ancient ones as Winter begins to approach.

There is also concern at the wall where Jon and Sam encounter a body whose death suggests a force other than wildings and both are congratulated for their behaviour and begin to feel like true men of the Watch. Jon is called to the attention of the Commander who asks him to pour wine for himself as well as for him and then reveals the news of the death of the King and the imprisonment for treason of his father. He cautions Jon about doing anything precipitous and when the lad gets into a fight with another he is confided to quarters. The young man is aroused by his direwolf and quickly senses that something is amiss and goes to the quarters of the Commander and foils an attempt on the man’s life.

Meanwhile Daenerys having achieved her ambition of getting her husband to take his forces across the water to regain her kingdoms is disturbed as the men start to take the women folk as they move to the coast raiding for slaves and money. She is rebuked by her husband when she questions the need for money as he reminds that it is needed to hire the ships which they need for the sea crossing. She sticks to her ground about the taking of the women saying that if the men want the women they should take the women as wives. This leads to one of his captains threatened by the increasing power of Danny to challenge her husband who kills the man with his bare hands although he is injured in the process. One of the rescued women who Danny has taken under her protection offers to heal the wound with skills learnt from her mother. She is regarded as a Sorceress and is to play a key part in what is to happen. The other captains continue to have questions and doubts about the role of Danny but her husband is impressed seeing this as only an indication that his son to be is filling his wife with courage and the will of a future leader.

Across the water Robb’s leadership continues to be a source fo concern and potential challenge when he decides to free an enemy look out who was trying to assess the number of troops which he has put at over 20000. Robb does not explain his reasons for letting the man return with the information on the size of the enemy and their intentions but we the reader suspect he has a plan, as yet undisclosed. The plan is a clever one. What he does is to sacrifice 2000 of his 20000 men in confronting the forces of the father of Lannister Senior who continues to have contempt for his height challenged son and decides that he and his brigands and wildmen should be at the forefront of the attack on the advances forces of Robb. Tyrion arranges to have a companion for the night before the battle and generally enjoy himself with good food and wine. When the battle is over he is surprised that although injured he is still alive, as is his father and he asks if the battle was won and his father says yes and the process of killing the entire remaining enemy continues. However his father says yes we have beaten the 2000 but the 18000 were elsewhere undertaking a surprise attack on the other brother and his forces.

In order to achieve the surprise victory it is necessary for Robb with his mother and the men to use a gated causeway controlled by a lecherous old war lord who although previously swore loyalty to Lord Eddard is known for his independence of mind and tendency to marry very young girls father several children and then take another wife with eight in total, if I remember correctly. It is Catelyn who takes the responsibility for negotiating a deal which Robb says he accepts and this includes that he will marry one of the warlord’s daughters and that Arya will marry one of the sons. Having negotiated the deal they are able to carry out the surprise attack which is not shown and next we see that Jamie has been captured who they now hope to bargain for the return of Ned and his two daughters.

A good part of this episode Baeolor (9) is devoted to Jon who has a new status on the Watch since saving the life of the Commander who gives him a well made family sword which was to have been passed down to his son who he regards as worthless. The others on the watch all want to see and handle the sword which Jon generously allows them to do so. Jon is called to the top of Wall where one of the elders now blind is chopping away at carcasses to create food for the ravens in their cages. Either on his own initiative or on behalf of the Commander he wants to let Jon Snow know that he understands the dilemma he is in, on one hand to go and help his half brother, half sister and his father and on the sworn loyalty of allegiance to his comrades in the Watch. The man discloses that he faced such a challenge late in life when the reality was that he would have been useless to help and he then also discloses that he is the brother of the Mad King, the Uncle of Daenerys. He is therefore sympathetic to the position of the young man but emphasises that while he will not advise or comment on which choice to make, he will need to decide and that once the decision is made there will be no going back.

Across the water Danny, now in the latter stages of her pregnancy continues to ride horseback by the side of her husband who falls ill as the wound he received when fighter a usurper begins to fester. When he collapses she insists they stop and make camp. Now another senior member of the Dothraki people steps in with his leadership challenge warning Danny that when her husband dies she will be nothing. Danny holds firm and calls on the woman she rescues and who tended her husband’s wounds to assist once more. The woman says that only the use of ancient beliefs can save the Kharl and she told go continue which involves the slaughtering of the Kharl’s horse with blood splattering on him and Danny. She is told to leave an ensure no one enters the tent and when the latest usurper moves to stop the old woman Danny is pushed to the ground and appears to bring forward the birth prematurely. When the man who has been her escort throughout the period in exile intervenes he is wounded but manages to kill the usurper. Danny enters the tent to seek the help of the old woman.

Back in the capital Lord Eddard in chains is approached by one of the other former advisers to the King, the eunuch who pleads with Ned to do all that he can to bring peace, to call on his son to stop the advance and to do what the Queen bids in order to protect his daughters. In the final scene he is brought before the public to admit his treason and that he and been wrong. Both his daughters look on with Sansa dressed in finery as the future wife of King Joffrey approves what he is doing while Arya dressed as an urchin looks on in horror. He sees her as he speaks to the crowd.

I therefore come the final episode of the first series Fire and Blood where I have also read that a second has been commissioned because of the positive audience response in the various countries where production has now been shown.

The episodes open with the news that following his speech on the orders of the King and his mother, Lord Eddard Stark is beheaded to the acclaim of the crowd. Sansa collapses in the shock of this betrayal which Ayra is protected by the man who provides the Watch at the Wall, the Black Watch, with new recruits. He cuts down her hair and tells her to function as a boy as he takes her North the Wall. There is an incident in which another youngster attempts to take the sword away from her and she threatens to the kill the individual boasting that he would be her second. The incident is stopped by another in the convoy, the blacksmith assistant, one of the previous Kings illegitimate children who had been visited by Ned, Lord Stark when tracing the investigation undertaken by the previous Hand to the King. I am not sure this part is the first book as I do not remember reading,

Sansa wishes to return home and experiences an assault by the King who says that his sister decided that they will marry in time. She is horrified by the betrayal by the King and his mother. She once was thrilled by his touch but now this makes her flesh cringe. He tells her he wants to have child as soon as she is capable. He forces her to see the head of her father and says he will give her another present on her birthday. Her brother Robb's head.

The grim nature of reality has come to her. A thousand leagues to the North the news of the death of his father has decided Jon to leave his post, to join his half brothers to avenge his father. Before he gets far he is overtaken by his three closest friends on the Watch all who took their oaths together. The persuade him to return. The Commander takes the decision to assemble the full force of the Watch to go beyond the wall to investigate what has been happening and to all try and find out what has happened to Lord Eddard’s brother who failed to return from the previous expedition to find out what was happening. The Commander questions Jon’s will and is satisfied with the commitment of the young man to participate in the quest with them. We see the troop leave the security of the Wall to out into the icy wilderness beyond.

Back in the area between the Kings Landing capital and their home the news of the death of Ned has reached his wife and son. She is tempted to kill Jamie and is her son but they hold fire until they have freed Sansa and Ayra after which she sears to her son that they will kill them all. She nevertheless strokes Jamie across the face with a rock and he admits that he did push her sun Bran off castle wall but does not disclose why. The news has reached that the brother of the King is claiming the throne. All Catelyn wants is get her daughters back and for them all to go home in peace. However the other Lords are not prepared to return without retribution for the deaths of relatives and comrades. They proclaim Robb King of the North.

Lord Lannister speaks approvingly of his son Tyrion’s recent conduct and his counsel and his father shares with him his plan which is to use a small force to cause havoc in area while they reassemble and prepare to make united battle against the forces assembled to meet them. In the meantime he announces that Tyrion is to become the new Hand to his nephew and put him and the boy’s mother, his sister, in their places. The only condition is that he does not take his woman, the whore, to court with him. Tyrion tells her of his father plan and his intention to take her with him as his mistress so that she can have an effect on the other women of the court. Tyrion remains the character of the series and the book.

The most dramatic development is however across the water where Daenerys discovers the treachery of the Sorcerer woman who has taken and killed her child after she gave birth claiming that it has been a reptilian monster. While her husband the Dothraki Lord has survived he has become a silent motionless shell of a man who enjoys laying out in the sun. However his captains and menfolk have for the greater part returned to their natural lifestyle abandoning the man who can no longer sit on a horse. The remainder with her are the women she rescued and a few of the older members of the Dothraki plus her personal protector. He is horrified suspecting that she proposes to die with her husband on the funeral pyre. However first she frees everyone to go or stay with her and the she orders the sorceress who betrayed her out of revenge for what her husband did to her people, to be tied to the pyre. The woman says she will not hear her scream. She does. But Danny also enters the burning conflagration and moves into its centre.

When the fires ends and the remaining embers cool, Danny is found alive at the centre fulfilling the prophecy that the descendents of the dragon. It is implied that she had taken the three dragon eggs given to her at the time of her marriage into the fire with her and these have down hatched and cling to her. The Protector and those who accepted her offer to remain with her as free men and women kneel to her in awe and admiration. She was confident she was the true heir to the Dragon Kings and would survive the conflagration.

So we have the breakup of the seven Kingdoms with three Kings and the Dragon Queen across the water, while the long dark Winter is coming with the re emergence of the undead.

The Game of Thrones pages 266-529

I saved watching and reading the next part of the Game of Thrones until this weekend in order to concentrate on my new programme working on my contemporary art project. This was written a week ago with a fourth programme to watch and fifth tomorrow.

The consequence of the gap of four weeks has meant having to remind myself of the story although I have quickly become familiar with the main characters. Rather than attempt to convey the twists and turns of the story over the month I am reporting the overall progress relating to the main characters plus aspects of the story which attracted my attention from the text together with any aspects of the book not included in the TV programmes or remembered when reading the text.

I begin with Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of the Lord of the North Eddard Stark, now the King’s Hand who despite his self exile to become a member of the Black Watch, one suspects he has a major part to play as the story unfolds. He shows great promise in his training but makes himself unpopular by his support for a new recruit Samwell sent by his father because the boy was coward hearted and refused to adopt the ways expected of a warrior. Jon has protected Samwell from the other recruits and the training Master. Both have misgivings about the life, especially the lack of contact with women and the lifelong celibacy membership of the brotherhood required. Jon grows anxious when his father’s brother fails to return and in the last TV episode covered by this writing, his riderless horse returns as he and Sam keep lookout at the top of the wall. Sam is delighted when he is told he will pass the training and become a Steward assisting in the Library and Rookery. When it was Jon turn to learn of his appointment he is shocked to be told he is to become the personal Steward of the Lord High Commander, nothing more than a personal servant and he felt humiliated as was the intention, but also one suspects to be protected for some greater purpose. The young men are seen taken the oath of commitment to the Order outside the Wall being told that they go down on bended knee as boys and rise as men. As they do this his direwolf Ghost returns carrying a severed hand in its mouth. There are several vivid scenes of the ice covered wall, the harshness and bleakness of the environment and the cold which permeates every aspect of their lives, but still nothing like the extent of the cold once the era of the long Winters take over from the Summertime.

The wife of Lord Eddard Stark, Catelyn, having visited her husband (to advise of the attempt on the life of her middle son and together with her husband learned that although the knife belonged to the former young man who sought her hand, known as Littlefinger he claimed to have handed it to the Imp, Tyrion, the height challenged likeable wayward, truth telling brother of the Queen), goes to visit her sister to seek further information on the death of the her sister’s husband. While on the journey they take overnight lodgings at a simple inn where she recognises several knights on their way to the tournament being held in the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in honour of the appointment of her husband as the Kings principal adviser, The King’s Hand. She calls in their assistance to apprehend the Imp, Tyrion, when he arrives from his visit to the Wall, and unknowingly to Catelyn, his visit to her home Winterfell where he devised a frame which enabled her son to ride a horse again and regain his will to live. An action unlikely if he had indeed been behind the attempted killing.

On their way to the extraordinary castle of the House of Arryn, along what is known as the High Road they are attacked by Brigands and Tyrion is released to aid in the fight for survival. He remains a prisoner thereafter although seeds of doubt at his guilt following his professed innocence begin to nag at Catelyn. The Castle is considered impregnable because it is approach through a guarded valley and then can only be reached part way or mule followed by either foot or winched baskets by which the supplies reach the fort. A disturbing sight greets Catelyn because her younger sister has aged to the extent she now looks older and she is still suckling her son who is already of an age to walk and talk. She wants Tyrion put immediately to death because he is of the House of Lannister but Catelyn agrees to his right to trial.

He is kept in a dungeon with a difference as there is large open to the elements side from floor to ceiling, beyond which there is a sheer drop to the bottom of the mountain. The guard is a dullard and a bully, depriving him of food but who he persuades on promise of gold to take message to Catelyn on basis he wishes to confess. He confesses his past wickedness but says he is not guilty of the crime accused. This leads to trial by combat where he is represented by someone who wins and he is released with ne companion offering to go with him along the notorious High road where it is anticipated he will not survive the murdering bandits.

In the capital Eddard has failed to prevent the holding of a tournament although his attention is directed at the activities of the former King’s hand who was visiting the illegitimate children of the King, one is working as a Blacksmith’s assistant and the other a teenage girl with a baby working at a brothel who remains in love with King waiting for him to return to her. He also finds he was exploring a large dusting book on the history of the King’s family. He lowly works out that all the illegitimate children have dark hair but his son Joffrey and the other children have fair hair like his wife and other members of her family. He finally works out that her children and the heir Joffrey to whom his daughter is betrothed is not the rightful heir. Before confronting the King and Queen with his findings he is wounded by one of the men of the Queen’s brother who goes to take him hostage on learning that Tyrion has been taken prisoner by Catelyn. When he recover he makes arrangements to return home with his daughters after having a row with the king over the decision to send an assassin to kill Daenerys who has become pregnant by the Dothraki Chief, Khal Drogo.

Sansa his daughter has re-established a relationship with her betrothed after the incident with the Direwolf and Arya and the butchers boy learning sword play. However she is disappointed when after the jousting and feasting she is left in the company of an ugly and wild man to escort her back to the Castle rather than Joffrey himself. Nevertheless she is distraught by the plan of her father knowing this will deprive her of becoming Queen. The reality of life is yet to dawn on this young woman no more an adolescent girl.

I noted the description of the meal at the feast comprising a suckling pig, pigeon pie and turnips soaked in butter with a honey comb afterwards. The coincidence is that only recently I mentioned to someone at the Marriott Leisure who had been on holiday in Majorca that I had twice eaten a suckling pig at a restaurant in the city centre during my only visit to the island and the only occasion that I have eaten this meal, Pigeons which are regarded as vermin has long since been a English food as they honeycomb for those that like honey.

Arya meanwhile has been enjoying swordplay lessons from a tutor selected by her father. He has been teaching her poise by standing on one leg blindfolded on the edge of stairs and also speed by learning how to catch cats. When undertaking the latter dressed in old clothes as boy she finds herself in under castle workings and in hiding overhears two men plotting to kill her father. She then finds herself outside the Castle and has difficulties returning only to find her father displeased by her disappearance and unwilling to hear what she has overheard in detail.

When attacked by the Queen’s brother, Littlefinger had left Ned and his men ostensibly to get the city watch to prevent the very deaths which occur. Either then or subsequently he warns Ned not to trust him. At the tourney the King proposes to enter an event in which men fight together until one is left standing. There is much breaking of limbs and some bloodshedding and the King is more than determined once his wife forbids him. This is seen as a cunning ploy her part as the King always does the opposite and therefore he could easily be killed in the mêlée and his death put down as an accident. He then decides to go hunting and is badly injured by a boar and dies having become too drunk to tackle the beast on his own, having commanded the others to stand by. He sees Lord Stark in private and gets him to write a Will on dictation in which he makes Ned Lord Protector of the realm and to govern until Joffrey is of age. Eddard writes this as rightful heir thus cleverly providing to bypass Joffrey once is position is recognised.

He has already confronted the Queen with his findings about the illegitimacy of Joffrey and the other, something which far from denying she justifies saying that the family have kept the line pure this way for 300 years and that she and her brother being twins shared the same womb and have been together since they were children. She says that nevertheless she did love the King but was shattered when on their wedding night he approached her drunk and called out the name of Ned’s dead sister instead of hers. She had ended a pregnancy caused by the King and for many years had learned how to satisfy him without permitting vaginal penetration. There is a scene where they talk together and she asks if he ever lover her and he admits his was always locked with the death of Stark’s sister.

The Queen chides Lord Stark for having failed to take the crown himself when he had the opportunity all those years ago and that in the Game of Thrones you win or die. Littlefinger also attempts to make a deal with Ned pleading with him to accept Joffrey as the King but working together they will take power. When Ned is summoned to the throne room to pledge obedience to the King who wishes his coronation to take place within two weeks, he reveals the last Will of the King which the Queen mother tares to pieces. Lord Stark as the authorised Protector of the Realm orders the arrest of the Queen and her children but it is Littlefinger who takes a knife to the throat of Ned saying that he warned him no to trust him.

Meanwhile across the water Daenerys has been securing her position as the wife of the Dothraki leader having made their way to the holy city normally in by old women, their slaves and visiting merchant. Her brother has become increasingly frustrated by the lack of action to regain his father’s kingdom and at the way he is treated, especially by his sister. Having struck her at one point he was made to travel on foot and then given the option of continuing to travel on foot or in a cart along with the old, the pregnant and the sick he opts for the cart not knowing that this is a humiliations and opens him to ridicule. He becomes even more upset when Danny achieves great standing and gives proof she will have son by eating raw the heart of a chosen beast. He comments that never has anyone expressed love and appreciation in the way the people demonstrated for her on that occasion.

When he continues to complain adn threaten her because of the lack of respect and failure to regain the crown, Khal Drogo melts gold from him and then pours the molten liquid over his head thus killing him with a gold crown.

When a shipment arrives and a wine merchant offers her a special wine, her escort becomes suspicious and requests the man takes the first glass himself and when he refuses and runs off it is realised this is an attempt to kill her and the unborn child. This puts Khal Drogo into a great rage and he vows to build ships and cross the water with his men and place her on the throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

There was one other development which heralds the way the adventure series is likely to progress. The son of Lord Stark (thrown off the castle home by the Queen’s twin brother when he discovered them together) goes riding with the help of the special saddle created by Tyrion. At one point he becomes detached from the hunting party and finds himself taken prisoner by runaways for the Night Watch and others, including a young woman. He is rescued by his brother and friend and the girl is taken prisoner. She reveals she is a wildling from beyond the great ice wall but has tried to flee as far south as she could because of the impeding arrival of Winter and even more significantly the awakening of the fearful creatures who have not been seen for over a thousand years, but who it is claimed have just been sleeping. The bloodshedding has only begun.