Object of the Month: ‘I’m a Spy’
To celebrate the release of the latest James Bond film, No Time To Die, starring Daniel Craig, we’ve dug out an original manuscript from the Archive entitled ‘I’m A Spy’.
Detail, “I’m A Spy” manuscript (C) NCAT
Is this Noel Coward confessing that all the rumours swirling around regarding his war work were true? Well, no, not exactly.
In fact this is a ‘cut’ lyric for a song intended for Beatrice Lillie in 1938’s Set To Music. It was to be performed in a sketch called “Secret Service” in which Lillie plays a comic spy called The Countess:
“I’m a spy
And I can’t imagine why,
As a job it couldn’t be more glamorous.
I should like to be seductive, sly and amorous
And be cluttered up with loads
or extremely secret codes.”
While this lyric pre-dates Coward’s own wartime espionage, it is somewhat prescient, considering his later frustrations with the lack of work he was given to do:
“All I had to do in August Nineteen-Thirty-Eight
Was take a rather common flat not far from Prince’s Gate
And wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait.
Oh why—am I a spy?”
Coward with Beatrice Lillie (c) NCAT
“You’d be no good in the intelligence service,” Winston Churchill told Coward, “Get into a warship and see some action! Go and sing to them when the guns are firing - that’s you’re job!”
Bu Coward wanted to use his ‘celebrity’ and ‘intelligence’ to do more. Late in life he recalled being recruited by Sir William Stephenson (known as ‘Little Bill’) who was head of British Security Co-ordination. Summoned to St Ermin’s Hotel in Caxton Street, London:
“I had to meet a contact in the foyer. I waited in this squalid place and eventually a man said “Follow me”… he wheeled me round andinto an elevator. It was only labelled to go up three floors. TO my absolute astonishment it went to the fourth instead. Well this was the… Special Operations Executive. What we called later the Baker Street Irregulars”
Apparently among these Baker Street Irregulars were other similarly unexpected spies Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Leslie Howard and Cary Grant (who would act as Coward’s handler in the US). It seems that their renown gave them a free pass to travel anywhere and meet anyone required, especially in America attempting to ‘sell’ the idea of joining the Allied effort.
But his appeal as an international diplomat was also his shortcoming. It was impossible for him to arrive anywhere secretly and several potential missions were aborted. One such occurred en route Britain from the US, when Stephenson received a coded telegram, quoted in Philip Hoare’s biography:
Sean Connery and crew on set of Dr No. (C) Cole Lesley Collection, NCAT
APRIL 2ND FOR NOEL COWARD (A) REGRETTABLE PUBLICITY GIVEN TO YOUR VISIT LONDON MY ENTIRE BRITISH PRESS WHICH WOULD INCREASE ON YOUR ARRIVAL UNFORTUNATELY MAKES ENTIRE SCHEME IMPRACTICABLE (B) COMPLETE SECRECY IS FOUNDATION OF OUR WORK AND IT WOULD NOW BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY OF OUR PEOPLE TO CONTACT YOU IN ENGLAND WITHOUT INCURRING PUBLICITY (C) WE ARE ALL VERY DISAPPOINTED AS WE HAD LOOKED FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU BUT THERE ARE NO FURTHER STEPS TO BE TAKEN.
It wouldn’t be the last time Coward had a brush with international spies: He was offered the title role of Dr No in the first James Bond film; a part he turned down vigorously (“No, no, no a thousand times no”). James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming lived round the Jamaican coast from Coward and they visited the location shoot near Coward’s home, in Ocho Rios. Cole Lesley, Coward’s secretary took several photos of the visit, including of then Bond Sean Connery and co-star Ursula Andress.
