In 1 921 George Smith, the son of a farm labourer, left his humble home in a Wiltshire village to become a pantry boy. Personable, polite and a willing worker, young Smith swiftly graduated from pantry boy to footman and from footman to gentleman's gentleman. His employers and least of all George himself could scarcely have foreseen that the young lad who cleaned out fires, polished the silver and pressed the master's suits, would one day become Britain's No. 1 Spycatcher. Yet it happened.

George Smith died in 1970—eight years after retiring as a superintendent in Scotland Yard's Special Branch. Few men have had a more colourful and eventful career. Once retired, Smith began compiling material for his memoirs : but his work was halted. The then Metropolitan Police Commissioner decreed that if he wrote his autobiography, he would contravene police regulations—for the greater part of his service* had been concerned with enemies of the State and State secrets.

Now Norman Lucas, famous crime reporter and for many years one of Smith's closest friends, has been permitted to write his biography. Among the dramatic stories he relates are Smith's remarkable encounters with IRA terrorists in 1939; war-time spies; the 'Scarlet Pimpernel' who made a fortune smuggling homeless Europeans into England; John Vassall, the dandy Admiralty traitor; atom spy Klaus Fuchs; and members of the Portland spy