WHAT better place for a literature festival event than a library?

Four short rows of seats on the second floor of the Central Library made for a rather intimate setting for Henry Hemming’s engaging talk about his book on MI5’s greatest spymaster.

As the sun set and the room darkened, he explained how eccentric animal lover Maxwell Knight joined the Security Service, worked in the shadows for years and became a legendary figure.

“He was just 31 years old, he had never worked in MI5 and his last full-time job had been running a pub yet he was treated like a star recruit.

“Right away, this new addition was given his own section, allowed to work entirely from home and granted his unusual wish of being addressed as M.”

The talk was chock-full of interesting facts and gripping tales straight out of a spy movie.

He used the example of Olga Grey to demonstrate M’’s skills as a spymaster.

He detailed how Maxwell guided and assisted her through the incredibly stressful task of leading a double life and infiltrating the Soviet Union, which took years and lead to her getting access to several Soviet secrets as she became the secretary to a senior Communist.

Henry also revealed that John le Carré worked for M and based a character in his book A Perfect Spy on his former boss.

The remarkable true story outlined in ‘M’’ will be turned into a TV series by the makers of Poldark.

The audience were given a chance to test their spy skills with a quick game where they told one truth and one lie to the person next to them and that person then had to guess which was which before also telling a truth and a lie back.

A quick show of hands revealed that very few people managed to both guess the lie and successfully tell a lie - but I was one of them.

Perhaps I’m in the wrong job...