{"id":113371,"date":"2026-03-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archwaybookshop.co.uk\/?post_type=product&#038;p=113371"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:45:53","slug":"my-family-and-other-spies","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/archive.archwaybookshop.co.uk\/product\/9781405971980","title":{"rendered":"My Family and Other Spies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Pre-order this unforgettable memoir of life in a family like no other, and their extraordinary, eccentric part in half a century of espionage . . .<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Simply stunning &#8230; might be the best non-fiction book I&#8217;ve ever read about post-war SIS&#8221; &#8211; <\/b>CHARLES BEAUMONT<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8216;It has always been inculcated into me that no good could ever come of having anything to do with my father ?&#8217;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service &#8211; or MI6 &#8211; training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior &#8211; and colourful &#8211; characters in SIS history. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain&#8217;s most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. But Wood&#8217;s search for the truth took him on a journey more remarkable than even he had imagined.<\/p>\n<p><i>My Family and Other Spies<\/i> is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary, scarcely believable life, a globe-trotting spy story that spans a half century from the gathering storm before the Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son&#8217;s reckoning with the secrets of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service &#8211; or MI6 &#8211; training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior characters in SIS history. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain&#8217;s most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. But Wood&#8217;s search for the truth took him on a journey more remarkable than even he had imagined. This title is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary, scarcely believable life, a globe-trotting spy story that spans a half century from the gathering storm before the Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son&#8217;s reckoning with the secrets of the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[641],"product_tag":[1743,833,27094],"class_list":["post-113371","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-biography","product_tag-autobiography-historical-political-military","product_tag-espionage-secret-services","product_tag-local-family-history-nostalgia","pa_book_author-wood-alistair","pa_cover-paperback","pa_dewey-327-12092-edition23","pa_imprint-penguin-books","pa_language-english","pa_pages-8562","pa_publisher-penguin-books","pa_readership-general-trade-code-k","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Family and Other Spies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pre-order this unforgettable memoir of life in a family like no other, and their extraordinary, eccentric part in half a century of espionage . . .&quot;Simply stunning ... might be the best non-fiction book I&#039;ve ever read about post-war SIS&quot; - CHARLES BEAUMONT&#039;It has always been inculcated into me that no good could ever come of having anything to do with my father ?&#039;As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service - or MI6 - training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior - and colourful - characters in SIS history. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain&#039;s most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. But Wood&#039;s search for the truth took him on a journey more remarkable than even he had imagined.My Family and Other Spies is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary, scarcely believable life, a globe-trotting spy story that spans a half century from the gathering storm before the Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son&#039;s reckoning with the secrets of the past.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Family and Other Spies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pre-order this unforgettable memoir of life in a family like no other, and their extraordinary, eccentric part in half a century of espionage . . .&quot;Simply stunning ... might be the best non-fiction book I&#039;ve ever read about post-war SIS&quot; - CHARLES BEAUMONT&#039;It has always been inculcated into me that no good could ever come of having anything to do with my father ?&#039;As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the (very high) walls of a Secret Intelligence Service - or MI6 - training camp, surrounded by some of the most senior - and colourful - characters in SIS history. 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