The guidance is contained in a booklet issued to all new recruits to the Security Service. Do not use false beards, carry plenty of spare change for the tube, and if you have to tell a taxi driver to “follow that cab”, be prepared to give him a big tip.
That was the advice issued to rookie MI5 “watchers” whose job it was to covertly follow and report on suspected enemy agents. The guidance is contained in a booklet issued to all new recruits to the Security Service during the Second World War. The now-declassified document is one of the exhibits in a new exhibition focusing on the work of M15 due to open at the National Archives in Kew, west London, in the spring.
The booklet is quick to dispel any notion among the newbie operatives that they are embarking on an glamorous career in the world of espionage. “Observation is a very onerous and exacting profession,” it notes sternly. “Screen sleuths of the secret service thriller or detective novel appeal to the uninitiated, but in actual practice there is little glamour and much monotony in such a calling as ‘observation’.
To be a successful watcher, men- there seems to be an assumption that it would always be men – should be of a “rather nondescript type” who would not stand out in a crowd. “The ideal watcher should not be more than 5ft 7ins or 5ft 8ins in height, looking as unlike a policeman as possible,” it says.
