The Story Behind

The Cuckoo Asset

Back in 1988, while still in my twenties, I spent my Wednesday evenings teaching Microprocessor Systems and Control to a group of production engineers from a Laura Ashley factory near Wrexham. The Leeswood factory employed around 350 workers and made clothing and curtains.
The two-hour sessions were full of banter, and the atmosphere was relaxed. One of the older engineers collected world coins and banknotes, and I mentioned that I had a number of rare notes brought back from communist Romania, then part of the Eastern Bloc.
The following week, I brought in the banknotes, each bearing a portrait of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. I explained that I had smuggled them out of Bucharest in 1981 after a private trip to visit a military museum. At the time, all visitors to Romania had to exchange 60 US dollars into Romanian currency on entry, then surrender any remaining notes on departure with no refund. Instead, I stuffed the banknotes into my socks and returned to Britain with them.
I gave the notes to the engineer to add to his collection.
The following week, another engineer who had witnessed the story and gift made an extraordinary announcement. He declared that I had in fact been a member of the intelligence services in 1981 and had served in Angola, Zaire and Zambia. He even produced what seemed to be compelling evidence that I had been supporting communications technology for the CIA and other agencies in Africa! Unfortunately, the only person in the room who could say with certainty that this was a case of mistaken identity was me.
The remaining lectures through the winter of 1988 continued in an atmosphere imbued with more respect — and a good deal more suspicion.
That strange misunderstanding stayed with me for ages, and became the spark behind The Cuckoo Asset.
Nearly fifteen years later, during the filming of cult television programme RobotWars, I had a chance meeting with a former MI5 employee. Over a few drinks, I described the outline of my story, and he loved it, offering a few suggestions about how such a scenario could have occurred.
Even then, the actual novel remained on the back burner for several more years, until a combination of CIA leaks and declassification helped reveal how my identity may have been mistaken back in 1981.
With the framework finally in place, and ideas developed over many years, the story was at last finished in 2025 — thirty-seven years after the incident that had first set it in motion.