Licence to thrill – on the trail of spies in London
London has a rich history of espionage. From James Bond – currently being remembered by an Ian Fleming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum – to Burgess, Philby and Maclean (not to mention ’sleeper’ Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, Sir Anthony Blunt), the city is full of spies and spymasters.
There’s now a spy trail of London which will help you view the sites of skulduggery. In fact, two trails – one covering the Second World War, showing how the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was crucial to beating Hitler, and one covering the Cold War.
On the Cold War trail, you’ll see the anodyne bus stop on Waterloo Bridge where Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by a poisoned umbrella.
Peruse the maze of links and sites attached to the trail carefully, and you can also find out who was the last person executed in the Tower of London – in 1941. (I’m not going to spoil it. If you really want to know, go and find out!)
Photo credit – M16 building by Sheila Thomson, on Flickr
Comments Off