Post by sparklingblue on Sept 21, 2003 7:51:48 GMT -5
Careful! There are tiny spies everywhere in Kew
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/21/nkew21.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/21/ixhome.html
(Filed: 21/09/2003)
It was 'undercover' day at the National Archives yesterday and James Bonds young and old arrived in a range of disguises to try their hand at the spying game, reports Elizabeth Day
Something is amiss in Kew. The normally peaceful, leafy streets are filled with children in a startling array of berets and fake glasses. Net curtains twitch to catch glimpses of a noisy trail of young people clutching false passports and talking loudly about having broken the Enigma code.
The upstanding residents of Kew, an attractive suburb of London, have never seen anything quite like it. Who are these strangely dressed Lilliputians assuming false identities on a Saturday morning? Are they plotting some suburban subversion from underneath their tiny berets and wigs?
The good people of Kew can sleep peacefully. The National Archives, formerly know as the Public Record Office, held its first "Undercover Archives" open day yesterday and invited Britain's children to become "top spies".
With an admirable disregard for the outdated protocol of keeping the business of secret agents, well, secret, the promotional leaflet encouraged participants to "try your hand at faking your own passport, codebreaking, forging the signatures of historic figures and writing messages in invisible ink. Don a disguise and follow our spy trail".
Alex Muller, 13, who had just come from having his face painted with an array of colourful flesh wounds, thought it was all an excellent idea. "I've already written to Millbank [the home of MI5] asking how to get a job in the intelligence services," he said. "I think it might be a bit too dangerous to be a spy just yet, but I love James Bond and think Pierce Brosnan is especially good."
Spies, it seems, have become a popular phenomenon. The Bond films, the recent airing of BBC1's Spooks, the television drama centred around life in MI5, and the extensive media coverage of the goings-on at the Hutton Inquiry have brought the work of the intelligence services into the public consciousness.
"Although the open days have been running for five years on various topics, we're definitely expecting more visitors this year because people - both adults and children - are really fascinated with the idea of secrecy," explained Eleanor Van Heyningen, the National Archives' senior events and exhibition co-ordinator. "Spooks and the recent political occurrences have alerted the public to the fact that these archives exist and are relevant."
Indeed, there were almost as many adults trying their hands at espionage as there were youngsters. In the middle of a group of knee-high children, Vera Whitby, a pensioner from Sunningdale, in Berkshire, proudly signed her name invisibly in lemon juice. "I came along because I thought it would be interesting and a lot of fun," she said. "I suppose it's also because of all that has been in the media recently about 'intelligence'. I wanted to see where all the secrets were kept."
Not so, according to Sarah Tyack, the Keeper of the Public Records, who is keen to point out through open days such as these that the National Archives are open to anyone. "A cabbie once said to me when I told him where I worked, 'Oh yes, that's where you keep all the secrets', but actually we keep that which was secret but is now open to all."
The increasing openness of the security services in general was also touched on by Dame Stella Rimington, the former director general of MI5, who delivered the opening speech.
"When I joined MI5 in the 1960s there was no question of looking at a website to find out what MI5 does, or of sending off for recruitment literature," she said. "Any preconceptions you may have about archives being boring places full of dusty old paper will certainly be shattered here today."
It was a view echoed by beret-wearing seven-year-old Rebecca Carling, from Chiswick, in west London. "I thought it would be like a museum, but it's much more interesting. I think being a spy would be lots of fun."
With that, she took off her false passport and her invisible signature and flounced off to baffle the residents of Kew.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/21/nkew21.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/09/21/ixhome.html
(Filed: 21/09/2003)
It was 'undercover' day at the National Archives yesterday and James Bonds young and old arrived in a range of disguises to try their hand at the spying game, reports Elizabeth Day
Something is amiss in Kew. The normally peaceful, leafy streets are filled with children in a startling array of berets and fake glasses. Net curtains twitch to catch glimpses of a noisy trail of young people clutching false passports and talking loudly about having broken the Enigma code.
The upstanding residents of Kew, an attractive suburb of London, have never seen anything quite like it. Who are these strangely dressed Lilliputians assuming false identities on a Saturday morning? Are they plotting some suburban subversion from underneath their tiny berets and wigs?
The good people of Kew can sleep peacefully. The National Archives, formerly know as the Public Record Office, held its first "Undercover Archives" open day yesterday and invited Britain's children to become "top spies".
With an admirable disregard for the outdated protocol of keeping the business of secret agents, well, secret, the promotional leaflet encouraged participants to "try your hand at faking your own passport, codebreaking, forging the signatures of historic figures and writing messages in invisible ink. Don a disguise and follow our spy trail".
Alex Muller, 13, who had just come from having his face painted with an array of colourful flesh wounds, thought it was all an excellent idea. "I've already written to Millbank [the home of MI5] asking how to get a job in the intelligence services," he said. "I think it might be a bit too dangerous to be a spy just yet, but I love James Bond and think Pierce Brosnan is especially good."
Spies, it seems, have become a popular phenomenon. The Bond films, the recent airing of BBC1's Spooks, the television drama centred around life in MI5, and the extensive media coverage of the goings-on at the Hutton Inquiry have brought the work of the intelligence services into the public consciousness.
"Although the open days have been running for five years on various topics, we're definitely expecting more visitors this year because people - both adults and children - are really fascinated with the idea of secrecy," explained Eleanor Van Heyningen, the National Archives' senior events and exhibition co-ordinator. "Spooks and the recent political occurrences have alerted the public to the fact that these archives exist and are relevant."
Indeed, there were almost as many adults trying their hands at espionage as there were youngsters. In the middle of a group of knee-high children, Vera Whitby, a pensioner from Sunningdale, in Berkshire, proudly signed her name invisibly in lemon juice. "I came along because I thought it would be interesting and a lot of fun," she said. "I suppose it's also because of all that has been in the media recently about 'intelligence'. I wanted to see where all the secrets were kept."
Not so, according to Sarah Tyack, the Keeper of the Public Records, who is keen to point out through open days such as these that the National Archives are open to anyone. "A cabbie once said to me when I told him where I worked, 'Oh yes, that's where you keep all the secrets', but actually we keep that which was secret but is now open to all."
The increasing openness of the security services in general was also touched on by Dame Stella Rimington, the former director general of MI5, who delivered the opening speech.
"When I joined MI5 in the 1960s there was no question of looking at a website to find out what MI5 does, or of sending off for recruitment literature," she said. "Any preconceptions you may have about archives being boring places full of dusty old paper will certainly be shattered here today."
It was a view echoed by beret-wearing seven-year-old Rebecca Carling, from Chiswick, in west London. "I thought it would be like a museum, but it's much more interesting. I think being a spy would be lots of fun."
With that, she took off her false passport and her invisible signature and flounced off to baffle the residents of Kew.
