Coronet Among the Weeds Read online

  Charlotte Bingham went on to write thirty-three internationally bestselling novels and the memoir MI5 and Me. In partnership with her late husband Terence Brady, she wrote a number of successful plays, films and TV series including Upstairs Downstairs and Take Three Girls. She lives in Somerset.

  charlottebingham.com

  Also available by Charlotte Bingham

  MI5 and Me

  A Coronet Among the Spooks

  Much to her surprise, eighteen-year-old Lottie has just found out that her aloof, rather unexciting father is a spy. And now he’s decreed that she must make herself useful and get a Proper Job – so she’s packed off to MI5 herself, trussed up in a dreary suit. Luckily her delightful colleague Arabella is on hand to enliven the torments of typing and decode the enigmas of office life. But as Lottie’s home fills with actors doubling as spies, and Arabella’s mother is besieged with mysterious telephone calls, the girls start to feel well and truly spooked…

  ‘Makes you laugh out loud on public transport’ Daily Mail

  ‘A fun and breezy read’ Observer, Best summer books 2018

  ‘Astonishing’ Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

  https://www.bloomsbury.com/author/charlotte-bingham/

  Click here to order

  Spies and Stars

  MI5, Showbusiness and Me

  London in the 1950s. Lottie is a reluctant typist at MI5 and the even more reluctant daughter of the organisation's most illustrious spy. Now she has had the bad luck to fall in love with Harry, a handsome if frustrated young actor, who has also been press-ganged into the family business, acting as one of her father's undercover agents in the Communist hotbed of British theatre.

  Together the two young lovers embark on a star-studded adventure through the glittering world of theatre - but, between missing files, disapproving parents, and their own burgeoning creative endeavours, life is about to become very complicated indeed...

  Praise for MI5 and Me:

  ‘Long may she write’ Lynn Barber, Sunday Times

  ‘The sort of light, frothy book that makes your laugh out loud on public transport’ Daily Mail, Books of the Summer 2018

  ‘Hilarious and candid … Filled with period detail, Bingham’s memoir is entertaining and extraordinary’ Hannah Beckerman, Observer

  https://www.bloomsbury.com/author/charlotte-bingham/

  Click here to order

  First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann Ltd, 1963

  This electronic edition published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Charlotte Bingham, 1963 and 2019

  Charlotte Bingham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square

  London

  WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi and Sydney

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: PB: 978-1-5266-0869-7; EBOOK: 978-1-5266-0885-7

  To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters