"Spycatcher" Harry Chapman Pincher dies aged 100

Chapman Pincher, described by his son Michael Pincher, as a “former journalist, author, fisherman, and ‘scourge of politicians of all hues’” passed away yesterday.
Michael said his father died “with no regrets, no fear and no expectation.” On facing the end Mr Pincher, always a man of humour, said “the carcass has finally given up.”
Chapman Pincher led a colourful career as a journalist at the Daily Express, where his colleagues called him the “lone wolf of Fleet Street.” He was the newspaper’s Defence and Science correspondent until his retirement in 1979.
He went on to write several books detailing espionage and in 1981 he wrote his most explosive book Their Trade is Treachery. The exposé revealed high-ranking Soviet moles buried deep inside the British intelligence service, and included allegations that former MI5 boss Sir Roger Hollis was a Soviet double agent.
“He was a one-off” Mr Pincher said, “He was single-minded and always very lucky.
“He never had to retract anything; never had to apologise. He was a fantastic hunter, hunting for stories, but always on his own.”
The prolific writer also authored many spy novels in later life including The Secret Offensive and Too Secret Too Long but his favourite novel was The Oxford Companion to the Mind which he described as “an inexhaustible collection of information on how the human mind works”.
“He was a difficult, eminent man but we became great pals in the end” his son Michael said. “He had a prodigious mind and could recite poetry and literature easily. He had a single-minded determination.”
Always appreciative of irony, he was once honoured by Russia for his services during the second World War, despite being an outspoken critic of the Russian spy agency. His last joke, says son Michael, was “Tell them I’m out of scoops.”
Harry Chapman Pincher is survived by son Michael and daughter Pat, his third wife Billee and her three children, and seven grandchildren and he will be buried at a family funeral in Thatcham on Friday August 15 at 10:30am. His son said he would be buried “with ham”: a Yorkshire expression that means “it will be a posh funeral”.
For more on this story see the Newbury Weekly News out tomorrow.