Spies say life is less James Bond and more Joe Public

Spooks reveal that their job involves lying to loved ones and questions on sex ... but there’s also time for baking

WHERE James Bond was known for relaxing with a martini, British spies nowadays are instead running “Bake Off ” competitions. Speaking for the first time collectively, six spies from MI5, SIS and GCHQ have offered a snapshot of what it is like to work in the UK’S three intelligence agencies.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, the spies eschewed the standard characterisations. Ameesha, an MI5 analyst, said that they were just “ordinary people doing extraordinary jobs”.

Describing how the security vetting process prior to joining was “intrusive” and that revealing intimate details of sexual proclivity felt odd “the first time round”, Lilly, who has worked for seven years at GCHQ, Britain’s cyber spying agency, said: “You have to talk about your personal life in great detail, but [the vetting officers] really do put you at ease”.

“It’s a regular check and now, when I do it, it’s not a big thing at all,” she said. “They’re not there to judge you”.

John, an officer in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – better known as MI6 – has worked for 15 years in countering the proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as hunting terrorists.

“There are very few things we’re competitive about [between the agencies],” he said.

“They are things like ‘where do you figure in the Stonewall rankings’ or who had the best Bake Off.”

The spies described how they needed to do a bit of myth-busting with new entrants. Jo, an MI5 officer who started as a linguist 15 years ago, agreed: “One new joiner asked, ‘Do I have to dump my girlfriend to work here? Because if I do, I will’.”

Describing anger and frustration experienced after a terrorist attack, the group agreed that such events caused a “sinking feeling” and a sense of devastation to be felt throughout the intelligence community.

“We know that we will not stop every attack from happening,” Jo said. “As much as we try, we know that the reality is that we cannot stop everything from happening.”

The spies talked of the difficulties in leading secret lives, where only their closest family and friends know the truth about them. John said he had worked for the SIS for six months before he told his husband, which he described as “an interesting conversation”.

Jo, from MI5, said: “One of my little kids came home and said, ‘We’ve got this thing on at school when you can take your parent to school if they do something really interesting, but mummy that’s fine because you don’t do anything interesting so you don’t need to come in’. And I remember thinking, ‘If only you knew’.”

“It’s a conversation for 10 or 15 years’ time,” she said. “I’ll get my Mummy brownie points then.”