um, er, ah ... wait, I've run out of ink?

[Ed Jewett]

Mansfield Cumming???

Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming KCMG, CB (1 April 1859 – 14 June 1923) was the first director of what would become the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6. In this role he was particularly successful in building a post-imperial intelligence service.

Born Mansfield George Smith on April 1, 1859 in British India, the youngest in the family of five sons and eight daughters of Colonel John Thomas Smith (1805–1882) of the Royal Engineers, of Föellalt House, Kent, and his wife, Maria Sarah Tyser.... In 1885 Cumming married Dora, daughter of Henry Cloete of Great Constantia, Cape Colony. After her death he married, on 13 March 1889, a Scottish heiress, Leslie Marian (May), daughter of Captain Lockhart Muir Valiant (afterwards Cumming), of the 1st Bombay lancers and Logie, Moray. As part of the marriage settlement he changed his surname to Smith-Cumming, later becoming known as Cumming. Their only son, Alastair, a dangerous driver like his father, was killed in October 1914, driving Cumming's Rolls in France. Cumming himself lost the lower part of his right leg in the same accident..... Over the next few years he became known as 'C', after his habit of initialing papers he had read with a C written in green ink[1]. This habit became a custom for later directors, although the C now stands for "Chief". Ian Fleming took these aspects for his "M", Sir Miles Messervy - using Cumming's other initial for the name and having M always write in green ink.

In 1914, he was involved in a serious road accident in France, in which his son was killed. Legend has it that in order to escape the car wreck he was forced to amputate his leg using a pen knife. Hospital records have shown however that while both his legs were broken, his left foot was only amputated the day after the accident. Later he often told all sorts of fantastic stories as to how he lost his leg, and would shock people by interrupting meetings in his office by suddenly stabbing his artificial leg with a knife, letter opener or fountain pen[1]......

When SSB discovered that semen made a good invisible ink his agents adopted the motto "Every man his own stylo".[2]

To the end of his life Cumming retained an infectious, if sometimes eccentric, enthusiasm for the tradecraft and mystification of espionage, experimenting personally with disguises, mechanical gadgets, and secret inks in his own laboratory.
He also had a fascination with most forms of transport, driving his Rolls at high speed around the streets of London. In his early fifties he took up flying, gaining both French aviators' and Royal Aero Club certificates. But his main passion was boating in Southampton Water and other waters calmer than those which had ended his active service career. In addition to owning ‘any number’ of yachts, Cumming acquired six motor boats. In 1905 he became one of the founders and first rear-commodore of the Royal Motor Yacht Club.
He was appointed CB in 1914 and KCMG in 1919. He died suddenly at his home, 1 Melbury Road, Kensington, London, on 14 June 1923, shortly before he was due to retire.
In the television series Reilly, Ace of Spies, he was portrayed by Norman Rodway.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Smith-Cumming