I Spy
Sir: Overt political allegiance and class snobbery may indeed have thwarted Toby Young’s undergraduate ambition to be ‘tapped on the shoulder’ by the security services (No sacred cows, 13 June), but I wonder if he underestimates the importance of persistence.
We were almost exact Oxford contemporaries and ‘out’ right-wingers to boot. During my first term I recall vividly a long conversation into the early hours with a fellow St Edmund Hall freshman, who confided that he had set his heart on joining MI6. He also insisted that one of the fabled dons responsible for recruiting spies was none other than the senior English fellow at our college, who after distinguished service in the second world war was now close to retirement. This was the near legendary Reggie Alton (whose son, I believe, enjoyed a distinguished journalistic career before falling into obscurity as a sports hack).
When a couple of years later, as JCR president, I happened to be sitting next to Reggie on High Table, I plucked up the courage to ask him about his rumoured extra-curricular activity. While neither confirming nor denying his involvement, he gently opined that the security services preferred to take on lower profile undergraduates. If Young is right about the importance attached to social class in recruitment in those days, I suspect my grammar school background might have been the final nail in my coffin.
