One of those extraordinary half-forgotten London characters.
And what a London character.
Born just off Paddington.
Norfolk Square.
You can almost hear the luggage being trundled,
the hiss of steam,
the clatter of arrivals and departures.
Ends up dying in Camden.
Cumberland Terrace.
Regent’s Park on the doorstep.
A proper London life.
Bookended north of the river.
But in between…
Oh, in between.
He runs away with the circus.
Not literally, mind you.
He inherits it.
Which is even better.
Because this is a man who goes from Harrow and Cambridge…
to 70 lions coming over from Paris…
to Christmas at Olympia with the royal family in the front row.
Picture it.
Sawdust.
Spotlights.
Brass bands.
Children wide-eyed.
And somewhere in the middle of it all…
Cyril Bertram Mills.
Circus proprietor.
Ringmaster of the greatest show in London.
And…
MI5.
Yes.
That’s where this gets interesting.
Because while he’s running the circus…
he’s also running agents.
His codename?
Mr Grey.
Which sounds less like a spy
and more like a discreet bank manager in Tunbridge Wells.
But never mind.
Mr Grey.
And one of the people he handles…
Is the double agent who helps fool the Nazis.
The man the Germans trust.
The man feeding them fiction.
The man who helps convince Hitler that D-Day is going to land somewhere else entirely.
And behind him…
quietly pulling the strings…
A London circus impresario.
You couldn’t make it up.
But wait.
Because the best bit is still to come.
Fast forward.
The war’s over.
New enemy.
New game.
The Russians.
And where are they?
Clustered together in one of the most exclusive streets in the world.
KPG as the locals call it.
Embassies.
Diplomats.
A little patch of Moscow in west London.
And right there.
Right in the middle of it.
In a flat sandwiched between Soviet diplomatic buildings…
Is our man.
Cyril Mills.
Circus proprietor.
Spy.
Listening in.
Intercepting signals between London and Moscow.
And here’s the part I love.
Every time equipment had to be delivered…
Every time something needed to be moved in or out…
They used a circus van.
Brightly painted.
Brazen.
Impossible to miss.
Rolling up and down Kensington Palace Gardens.
And the Russians?
Thought nothing of it.
Just the circus.
Just another bit of London colour.
Nothing to see here.
Meanwhile… inside…
Mr Grey is listening.
You see,
London has always been like this.
Layers.
One thing on the surface…
Something else entirely going on underneath.
A circus on the outside.
A spy operation within.
And a man who managed to be both.
Cyril Bertram Mills.
One of those extraordinary half-forgotten London characters.
—
Tomorrow…
We leave the circus behind.
And step into something altogether different.
A place. Well, 14 places actually. In a very real sense, all of London.
And a moment. Well, 14 moments.
And a Londoner. A London Walker.
She’s got a story to tell. A London story. Indeed, a London Walks story.
One of those London stories that makes you stop… and look again.
London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Bidding you fare well now with the usual valediction. Here’s to lots of great Londoning.
See you tomorrow.