Stella Rimington BA DG DCB PhD (but not KGB) RIP
by Philip Ardagh
August 2025
Philip Ardagh on a memorable evening spent in the company of the late spy chief.
Every Christmas, the UK’s oldest bookshop, Hatchards of Piccadilly (no apostrophe), invites a number of authors who have books in their Christmas catalogue to sit at tables in the various sections—crime, travel, biography, art, etc.—so that shoppers can buy their books then have them signed and/or inscribed, making those no-doubt carefully-chosen Christmas presents even more special.
Children’s authors like me are always on the very top floor of the building, in the children’s section, far from the madding crowd with little thru’ traffic. But in 2004, I was in the basement, at the Crime Fiction table, promoting my book The Not-So-Very-Nice Goings-On at Victoria Lodge: Without Illustrations by the Author (the pictures were instead from Punch).
My fellow criminals at the table were PD James (most famous for her Detective Adam Dalgliesh novels); Michael Dobbs (author of the original House of Cards, made famous by the BBC's "I couldn’t possibly comment" TV series, and then world-famous by Netflix); and Stella Rimington, whose death, aged 90, was announced just yesterday.
Dame Stella was, famously, the first female head of M15, from 1992 to 1996; but then went on to write a memoir (for which she was duly shut out by her former colleagues) and the Liz Carlyle espionage novels—which also sold of course in the crime section.
It was a tremendous evening. Faber-list comrade Phyllis James spent much of the time chuckling over my book, and frankly I wish I’d been able to transcribe her nice remarks straight onto the back cover. Michael Dobbs (big Maggie Thatcher fan, and former Conservative Director of Communications) was loud and ebullient and good company; I was—naturally—SENSATIONAL; and Dame Stella was quiet, charming and very interesting indeed. (I could tell you some of the things she said to me during the course of the event, but then... well, you know.)
The mention of her name on Radio 4 last night brought all these memories flooding back.
Crime mega-seller Ruth Rendell (alias Barbara Vine) showed up, uninvited. She would probably have liked an invitation—but it didn't seem to matter much, because it soon became apparent that (on that occasion at least) she was as daft as a brush. She wandered away, laughing.
Then, at one point, a couple came over. Instead of asking for a signature, the woman thrust a digital camera into the man's hand, sat on my lap, and gave me a passionate kiss on the mouth as he took a photo. She then thanked me by name, got to her feet and moved off, arm-in-arm with the man. PD James turned to me and said, perplexedly, "Aren't you going to introduce us to your wife...?"
The former spy chief on my other side stifled a grin and looked away. Well trained, them M15 operatives: watching, absorbing, yet saying nothing...
