Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC , who has produced a number of dramatisations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage.
14-593: Major General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell , KBE , CB (21 November 1873 – 27 March 1942) was a British Army general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5 . Known as K , he was described in Who's Who as "Commandant, War Department Constabulary". Born in Great Yarmouth , Norfolk , in 1873, Kell was the son of Major Waldegrave Kell of
28-504: A number of dramatisations, most notably as the head writer of the Sherlock Holmes radio series (1989–1998) starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson (the first time the entire canon had been adapted with the same two lead actors throughout). He also wrote original Sherlock Holmes scripts for the following BBC radio series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , each based on an unexplained reference from
42-702: A posting in his regiment from 1 October 1903, and was appointed a staff captain serving at the War Office on 9 February 1904. Rising public fears in Great Britain of German espionage precipitated the creation of a new government intelligence agency. In 1909 Kell was selected by the War Office and the Admiralty as one of two officers, alongside Mansfield Smith-Cumming , to head the newly formed Secret Service Bureau. He retired from active duty on 16 October 1909, but remained on
56-503: A recording engineer, sound-effects technician, script reader and producer-director before becoming a full-time writer in 1989. Coules began writing without any previous training, saying that he only heard a bad radio drama and felt he could do better. He wrote his first script in 1977 and had it accepted, a 45-minute docu-drama called "Wagner in Hell". Coules specializes in mystery and science fiction audio and radio drama, and has written
70-450: A secret society of bodyguards attached to the radical women's suffrage movement in the graphic novel trilogy Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons (2015). In Dennis Wheatley 's novel The Second Seal , Kell investigates the book's hero, the Duke de Richleau . In Bill Aitken's novel Blackest of Lies , Kell is involved in the concealment of Lord Kitchener's fictional death at the hands of
84-896: The 38th Foot and his wife, Georgiana Augusta Konarska, daughter of Samuel Alexander Ernest Konarski and Harriet Fraser Lucas. After graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst , Kell was commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment on 10 October 1894, and promoted to lieutenant on 15 December 1896. He was in January 1900 seconded for service in China, and fought in the Boxer Rebellion later that year. He could speak German, Italian, French and Polish with equal facility, and after serving and studying in China and Russia, he learned their respective languages too. While he
98-673: The First World War, Kell headed MI5(g) , a section dealing with the Indian seditionist movement in Europe . Among Kell's officers were ex-ICS officers Robert Nathan and H. L. Stephenson. Kell also worked closely with the Special Branch of Scotland Yard , then headed by Basil Thomson , and was successful in tracing the work of Indian revolutionaries collaborating with the Germans during the war. Kell
112-675: The Irish Republican Brotherhood. [REDACTED] Media related to Vernon Kell at Wikimedia Commons Major-general (United Kingdom) Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 382726338 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:31:19 GMT Bert Coules Bert Coules worked in radio drama for ten years, gaining experience as
126-474: The blame. On 10 June 1940 Kell was dismissed on the instructions of Winston Churchill , after 30 years in post. He was the longest-serving head of any British government department during the 20th century. Kell was awarded the following orders and decorations: Kell was the basis for a major character in Bert Coules 's radio adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle 's His Last Bow . Kell is depicted as an ally of
140-506: The original stories. These were first broadcast between 2002 and 2010, and starred Andrew Sachs as Watson, following Michael Williams' death in 2001. He has also written dramatisations of several of Ellis Peters ' Brother Cadfael novels, starring Philip Madoc as Cadfael, and of works by Ian Rankin , Val McDermid , Isaac Asimov and other best-selling genre authors. He is an avowed Arthur Conan Doyle and Doctor Who fan. In 2019, Coules wrote (with actor Tim Marriott ) and directed
154-427: The rank of major on 20 August 1913. Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Kell was restored to active duty as a GSO 2, and was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel on 5 September. On 1 March 1915, he was appointed a GSO 1, retaining his temporary rank. For his service, he received a brevet promotion to lieutenant-colonel on 3 June 1916, and received a temporary promotion to colonel on 21 December. During
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#1732858279456168-454: The reserve list. Kell and Cumming decided to divide the intelligence work, Kell taking responsibility for domestic concerns, while Cumming was to oversee foreign matters. However, their working relationship was fraught, as Cumming advocated the separation of the Bureau's work into two distinct departments (which evolved into MI5 and MI6 ). The separation took place in 1910. Kell was promoted to
182-473: Was on the intelligence staff in Tientsin he was also the foreign correspondent of The Daily Telegraph . He was promoted to the rank of captain on 24 September 1901, while still seconded in China where he served as a Railway Staff Officer (for which he was mentioned in despatches). After his return to London from China in 1902, Kell was employed to analyse German intelligence at the War Office . He returned to
196-575: Was promoted to the rank of colonel in the reserve of officers on 1 April 1924. Upon reaching the age of 60 on 21 November 1933, he was removed from the reserve list. Kell received an honorary promotion to major-general on 27 September 1939. In December 1938, having reached retirement age, Kell asked to remain in post on a year-to-year basis. With the onset of war, MI5 finally got the hiring and financial resources of which it had been starved for years. However, MI5 proved unable to deploy them without confusion and Kell and his deputy , both in their mid-60s, got
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