Colouring-in for mini spies

GCHQ’s fiendish game for kids in new puzzlebook

For youngsters who dream of His Majesty’s Secret Service, here is a mission for your eyes only.

GCHQ has created its first puzzle book for children with the help of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Prince William and his wife Kate have written the foreword for the book whose challenges, it is hoped, will encourage codebreakers, engineers, mathematicians and linguists of the future.

To mark the release yesterday, spy chief Sir Jeremy Fleming launched a mindboggling bonus puzzle (right), using the 1852 four-colour theorem by Francis Guthrie, who found that no more than four colours are needed in a picture for colours not to overlap. over a century later, it became the first major theorem to be proved using a computer.

GCHQ’s unofficial ‘Chief Puzzler’, named only as Colin, said: ‘You don’t have to be top of the class to work at GCHQ. You just need to have an interest in figuring things out and an infectious curiosity. This is why so many of us are so fond of puzzles.’

royalties for the book will go to William and Kate’s royal Foundation to support mental health work.