On forgotten 'spy' writers
Theodore Edward Le Bouthillier Allbeury, (1917–2005)
When Len Deighton died earlier this year, I was reminded of the luncheon party he hosted at The Savoy on 29 June 1984. The event was held to celebrate Eric Ambler’s 75th birthday. The photo above shows the writers who attended the gathering, and yes, it was an all-male affair. We have some snippets of detail about the afternoon, but these are at best sketchy.1 Given the attendees and their range of opinions, it was probably quite a lively afternoon.
[Worth mentioning here that the late Alan Rickman made his small-screen debut in the BBC’s Smiley’s People (1982) playing a concierge at The Savoy ]
In attendance to pay their respects to Ambler, the doyen of Anglophone ‘thriller’ writers, were Frederick Forsyth, Kingsley Amis, John le Carré, and, obviously, Deighton: all ‘big beasts’ in the writing world. Perhaps lesser-known were John Gardner, Julian Symons, Miles Tripp, Gavin Lyall and Lionel Davidson. Plus, there was one other author whom I had never heard of: Ted Allbeury.
It turns out Allbeury had written 40-plus spy thrillers and had a back story that reads like a novel. According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War Allbeury responded to an advertisement in The Times seeking linguists for special work with the army. He was interviewed in the back room of a barber’s shop off Trafalgar Square, an encounter that he later wrote into several of his novels. Accepted into the intelligence corps, he served in Somalia, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Italy, and finally occupied Germany. He was demobilized in 1947 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
It is unclear whether, to what extent, and how long Allbeury continued in intelligence work after his official release in 1947; his own accounts varied.
This synopsis leaves out some more lurid details of his life that Deighton hinted at in the Guardian’s obituary:
During the cold war, Ted was running agents across the border that divided communist East Germany from the west. His luck ran out and the Russians left him nailed to a kitchen table in a farmhouse. Practised torturers, they made sure he had a chance to survive and take the story back to his fellow agents. The war never ended for him. His children were kidnapped and he pursued them to South America. Ted never told me what happened after that.
I urged Ted to write his memoirs but he could not be persuaded. He said he’d signed an official document that prevented him doing so. Well, that’s our loss, along with Ted himself:
And this still leaves out his stints as a chicken farmer, PR man and Pirate Radio DJ. You can get an idea of this varied background in this edition of the BBC’s Desert Island Discs.
I’ve only read a couple of his novels so far, and while they’re effective and low-key, I am not sure I’ll be rushing out to read all of the 38 others, but I will be trying one of his tales set in the Second World War next. I just finished his No Place to Hide (1986), and noticed that the late Sam Neill, starred in the film adaptation, which looks ever so slightly ropey.
Anyway, perhaps I’m the only one who’d never heard of Allbeury, but the interview below, for some Canadian news programme, gives some insight into the man; and it is intriguing. I would recommend a viewing.
Oh and apologies for mentioning so many dead people.
I do not know of any coherent account of the entire event, but this piece gathers most of the known references https://spywrite.com/2017/06/28/spy-writers-club/
Someone should write a biography of the man. :)
What a fascinating character. Sounds like a fictional life. I'm curious to learn more