From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 119)

The twenties, coming on the heels of the Great War, fairly roared. As an unencumbered gentleman, still able to pass as young, due to my level of fitness and superior grooming, the world - or at the least the parts my department was overseeing - was my oyster. Alice, laid low with the double affliction of marriage and motherhood, could rarely accompany me. Jack also frequently had to stay at home. I missed them both a great deal, far more than I expected.

However, it did mean I got to mix with the bright young things (an ironic term as most of them were dimmer than a penny candle). I generally presented myself as well-heeled and up for a bit of jollification. Bringing along some of the better bottles from my father’s cellar, without his knowledge of course, endeared me to the louche kinds who crammed their automobiles with booze, fast (though still upper-class) ladies, and cocaine. The subsequent ‘adventures’ that followed mostly seemed to involve harassing the average working man - a creature the bright young things appeared to find endlessly fascinating.

There were also the parties at which champagne, cocaine and clothing were strewn about with careless abandon. I generally pretended to drink excess, I don’t take drugs, and my tailor would be bereft if I treated my wardrobe with such carelessness.

On the whole, I was on the lookout for trouble at home, more than just enemy spies. In particular, fools who adopting some barely understood ideology, taking it upon themselves to use their connections to hand over information to the other side(s). You have to remember; these were the spoiled children of the mothers and fathers who had seen so many lost in the trenches and were determined their own little darlings would live life to the full. Thus the children had powerful connections and doting relatives who had access to all kinds of vital security information. It was quite a nightmare time to be a spy.

For all their much-vaunted waywardness, the danger came not from their ability to scheme and plot, but from their lack of intellect, childlike susceptibility, and overly indulgent relatives.

It was also assumed everyone was ‘naughty’. I certainly saw a lot, but I sampled very little of the wares on offer. I tend to like to have some idea of where and with whom my female acquaintances have been before we - er - personally entertain each other. But, as I suspected, my aloofness and disinclination to join in with the more bacchanalian celebrations only made me more desirable. Needless to say, I could point my arrow wherever I wished and achieve success. Nothing, I find, cools desire more than availability.

I suppose there must have been moments of the 20s I enjoyed, but on the whole, I found the whole scene rather a bore. Of course, there is no power on earth that would make me confess this beyond the pages of this diary. The tales I tell among the gentlemen, and even the edited versions with which I beguile the ladies, make me sound like a right rogue!