Which makes for facinating speculations on what Neil was like before
becoming D-OPS. Willie mentions that he drank half a bottle of brandy a
night in the old days. He was also divorced three years before the start
of the show, and married for 5. He was a Sandbagger for 7 years. Now
there is no guarantee that those had to be contiguous years, altho it
does seem like most Sandbaggers don't get promoted or quit or retire,
they just die. Talk about a dead-end job! (sorry, couldn't help myself.)
So Neil might have joined SB after marriage. Maybe Belinda liked the
idea of being married to a spy. Unless his time as a Sandbagger was split.
Ian Macintosh, who created the series and wrote 17 of the 20 episodes,
published a novel, which is mostly just a prose version of Always Glad to
Help and A Feasible Solution. Here is (illegally) what Macintosh has to
say about Neil: "A long time before, when he had been twenty-four and the
junior Sandbagger, he had used the nights to weep, although he had never
identified then the things for which he was weeping. But as he had grown
older,as the shell had grown around him, the tears had stopped...Most
galling of all, he knew that the tears had never been for those who had
died: but for himself, who was left to live...All of them had loved life,
and had been taken away. But he, who was afraid of life, had been spared
to go on."
So critically, does the series/Marsden make the above description of UrNeil
believable?
> Diane calls Burnside "Neil" at one point -- NO other subordinate does
> this. Willy calls him "boss," Alan called him "sir," Laura calls him
> "sir."
Good point. Altho his relationship with Willie is pretty casual. Wonder
what Willie called him in the Hutch? "Number One"? Willie likes to use
nicknames, as when he calls Diane "Boss's Slaive".
> I think the PA's are in some strange way protected by their position.
> Even though their tasks are not very prestigious, they know they will
> never be sent on a dangerous mission, and they know they are essential
> to Burnside's operation. Burnside snarls at them, but it's all surface;
> he has to be able to work with them and he knows it.
Hmmm, 'tasks not prestigious"? Ever been a PA? Diane has a clearance
rating equal to Burnside's, and I bet she could take over in a pinch and
unofficially has done so. The PAs also remain in their jobs when the
directors change - Diane was PA to the previous D-OPS, Sandy serves both
Greenley and Gibbs. True, they don't go on missions; neither do the
Directors. PAs don't make the decisions, but they probably know *what*
decisions will be made about each case. As for prestige, remember this
is the late '70s, and Laura is the *first* female Sandbagger. Women are
obviously trained as agents, but I'd think that PA to D-OPS, D-INT, DC or
'C' are about the most prestigious, important jobs in SIS an non-agent
can aspire to if they are not in the pipeline for one of those jobs.
Nicole
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Blessed are those of us who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never
cease to be amused.