The main part of this month's update is the report on the 2023 Convention, which took place at Dartington Hall in Devon on 20th-22nd October.

Next year's Convention is provisionally pencilled in for Dartington Hall on 25-27 October 2024, but this is subject to confirmation.

Elsewhere, as it's the Christmas season, I have included one Christmas piece; the screen (now sadly badly in need of restoration) on which DW pasted a selection of cards from some of his most prestigious wartime friends.

Elsewhere, I see that DW's copy of Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway' is on offer at a New York bookseller for $55,000 (£43,000). Not a bad return (over 28,000%) for the person who bought it from Blackwell's in 1979 for £150.

Season's greetings to all supporters of the website.

Charles

This month's update is the Field Trip report on the trip ten of us went on in July this year to explore Traben-Trarbach; the beautiful town on the Moselle in Germany where DW spent several months learning the wine trade in 1913 before the world order changed with the advent of World War One.

This month completes the display of material kept by Mr Bell from his days with The London Controlling Section. Mr Bell arranged the iconic photo- shoot of the Section, and kept what as far as I know is the only surviving original copy, autographed by three of its members. He also kept another 'take', which as far as I know has never before been displayed.

When we talk about the London Controlling Section, we normally discuss Johnny Bevan, DW, and the other main members of the Section (Messrs Peteval, Wingate, Arbuthnott, Gordon Clark, Morley and Sir Reginald Hoare), but various other officers and an eminent scientist joined them on assignment from time to time. In addition, once things got going, they had secretaries and civil servants in support, and as time went on, Johnny Bevan acquired a personal assistant in Lady Jane Pleydell-Bouverie.

We hear little of the support staff, which is a pity. I was therefore absolutely delighted when a relative of one of these contacted me a while ago, and - having seen the material on LCS on the site - asked if I would be interested to see his collection of his relative's papers.

I naturally said 'yes', and I am enormously grateful to him for not only showing it to me, but for allowing me to exhibit the material on the site.

I hope what I am showing in this month's update (more will follow next month) will be a fitting tribute to his relative, Mr W V Bell, who clearly liked DW

Elsewhere, DW fans are about to be able to read a story in which he had a hand for the first time since it was serialised in various newspapers in the early 1950s. In 'Sequence Sinister', which is being republished as part of series six of the 'Bodies from the Library' series edited by Tony Medawar and published by Collins Crime Club, DW and four other authors took turns to write episodes of a crime thriller, handing it on to each other 'blind' to carry on as they saw fit. DW wrote the fourth of the five sections, and I hope readers will find it enjoyable when it comes out shortly.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two with a résumé of the deception involving the (non-existent) First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG).

It then looks at the deception using ‘Monty’s double’, including a piece from DW’s unpublished memoirs in which he discloses that - having taken the actor Clifton James up in an aeroplane to check he wasn’t airsick - on the way back to London, DW took Clifton James on a lengthy detour over to Lymington, so as to have a look at the house he had just purchased.

In July, ten enthusiasts enjoyed a field trip to Traben-Trarbach in Germany, where DW spent the summer and autumn of 1913 learning the wine trade, and we also visited nearby Bernkastel, which featured in ‘Julie’s Lovers’. A field trip report will appear on the website after the October Convention.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. The exhibits start with an account of the various security classifications which were used by the likes of DW, and ends with an amusing and at the same time absolutely hair-raising account by U.S. Colonel Bill Baumer of Bevan’s trip with him to Moscow by high-altitude plane in January 1944 to ’sell’ the Allied deception proposals to the Russians.

Elsewhere, and for those more interested in DW’s books than his life, I have long contemplated putting a ’Rarity Ratings List’ on the website. This month I am doing so, and I hope it will be of interest to bibliophiles. My thanks go to James Hallgate of Lucius Books and Jonathan Frost of Frost Rare Books for reviewing the list and giving me their comments on it before it went ’live’. Ultimately, of course, all the opinions expressed therein are mine.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. This month’s exhibits take us up to the initial deception planning for the Normandy invasions - which took place 79 years ago this month, and include a rather nice table courtesy of The National Archives showing how false stories were fed to the enemy on a systematic basis by double agents - including an agent very well known to DW.

Elsewhere, May’s issue of ‘The Book Cover Review’ contained a superb article by Graham Rawle on DW’s ‘Murder off Miami’. It begins ‘I can’t tell you who was murdered off Miami or who the murderer was, but as an artefact this book is incredible.’

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. This month’s exhibits include the story of how DW committed forgery to bring his friend and colleague James Arbuthnott back to London from Cairo; of how even a general needed a pass to see DW; and how both DW and Wingate missed out on a whisky-and-soda with Churchill.

I hope readers will find these accounts amusing.

Elsewhere, thanks to the diligent researches of Steve Whatley, I can fine-tune the publication date of ‘The Seven Ages of Justerinis’ - I am now marking it as March 1949.

This month I am continuing the story of DW’s adventures in World War Two; beginning with an account of DW’s typically friendly relationship with the man who supplied Churchill with his secret information during his ‘wilderness years’, Sir Desmond Morton; looking at DW’s techniques for garnering information that was supposed to be withheld from him; looking at DW’s strongly-held view that the invasion of Sicily in 1943 was thoroughly misguided, and finishing with a look at DW’s ‘footprint’ in the National Archives.

I hope readers will find these accounts - many of them based on unpublished material - interesting.

This month I am switching back to DW’s literary output.

One of DW’s more unusual series of books was his ‘The Seven Ages of Justerini’s’ and its two sequels, written for his friends at the Royal warrant holding wine merchants, Justerini and Brooks.

To see what DW wrote about these books in never published portions of his memoirs, click on the links to the right.

I’d also like to thank Mike Ripley for his exceedingly nice review of ‘Julie’s Lovers’ in the latest edition of his awe-inspiring ‘Getting Away With Murder’ column in SHOTSMAG.

This month continues the special exhibition in the Museum on DW in World War Two, with new sections on Operation Torch and on DW’s skills at what we would now call ‘networking’. The Operation Torch exhibits include some fascinating material from the National Archives showing the operational timeline for the various deception schemes.

As in previous months, much of this month’s material is being laid before the public for the very first time.

I have also updated ‘Forthcoming Events’ in the ‘Conventions and Field Trips’ section with details of this summer’s field trip to Traben-Trarbach in Germany, where DW spent time before World War One learning the wine trade, and which is in one of the areas depicted in ‘Julie’s Lovers’.

In addition to the above, I have made minor textual changes to update various reference sections.

To start the New Year, I am continuing to unveil pages about DW’s unique career in World War Two in the Museum.

In the first of the new pages, I explore DW’s relationship with his first boss, Oliver Stanley - a very eminent and important figure.

The next page looks at DW’s ‘Deception Bible’ - a document which is referred to in ‘The Deception Planners’, but the survival of which only came to light in the last few months.

Thirdly I say a little more about the second Controlling Officer, and the man who is generally credited with turning around the fortunes of London-based deception - Johnny Bevan.

Elsewhere, and thanks to an alert from Kevin Pearce, I am able to identify that Johnny Bevan was one of the recipients of DW’s special limited edition of ‘The Devil And All His Works’ in 1977, and I have done a little tidying up of various other references on the website.

Last and by no means least, I wish a very Happy New Year to all this site’s readership!