Harry Ferguson

Harry was recruited into MI6 (British Secret Intelligence Service - SIS) while he was studying at Oxford University in the early 1980s. In the 1990s, he transferred to the National Investigation Service (NIS) to work on the covert investigations of the international narcotics trade and the smuggling of weapons destined for terrorist groups.

In 2004, he was selected to be the face of MI6 for the BBC TV reality series 'Spy' and worked alongside Mike Baker of the CIA. The series saw ten members of the public put through real espionage training and culminated in three winners going on an undercover operation in North Africa against local security forces. The series has been shown in more than one hundred countries around the world.

Harry has written five non-fiction books: 'Kilo 17' and 'Lima 3' are about his time in the NIS. 'Spy' was written to accompany the BBC TV series and 'Operation Kronstadt' is the first full account of a real MI6 operation. The latter was written because Harry cannot discuss his operational work and this historical account answers many of the questions that he is often asked about the life of a spy. In 2024 he published 'The English Spy's Book of Wisdom', a selection of quotations and anecdotes chosen to illustrate the realities of modern espionage.

Today, Harry is a grandfather and semi-retired. He works as a historian and commentator on intelligence matters as well as working in the private intelligence industry. He appears as a security consultant on all of the major television news channels. He has demonstarted how to assassinate someone with a fountain pen on Japanese television, opened the Madame Tussaud's James Bond exhibition in London, and carried out several movie promotions. He has even appeared in a children's television programme. It is safe to say that his cover has been pretty much blown.

Harry Ferguson runs the TikTok channel @theenglishspy with the aim of providing context for breaking news stories about espionage and also educating the public about the realities, rather than the myths, of spying.