- [Alison] I just need to know who he was.
(soft music) - I'd like the audience to make up their own mind about that.
- We decided to retain Alec as a man of mystery because he still is, for all of us, as a family.
- The department's gonna fire me.
It'll be very public.
- We still don't know the real truth about who he was, 'bout why he got sacked from MI6, the reasons why he married these women, we don't have any written account from him about his feelings, about his justifications.
- As I went on the research process, I kept learning new things, and I kept changing my mind.
Is he a good man?
Is he a flawed man?
Is he an absolute charlatan?
- All the kids from the family all have very fond memories of him, apart from Douglas, who never met him, but everyone else has very fond memories of him as a father.
- He sent money, he visited, never missed a birthday.
- He was loving, told stories, he was full of life, and gregarious, and fascinating, and exciting.
- All of his children, and all of the wives, they loved him so much.
Everyone's very conscious that he's portrayed in a good light, because ultimately, he was a good man and he loved his children, and he was a good father.
- Whatever was going on, I think he had a good intent, he had a good heart, which doesn't excuse or mitigate everything.
He was a very successful fiction writer.
He had a really profound belief in his country, in the war, and what he could do to help the cause.
It's my cover, you know that.
The work he did in the Secret Services, I mean, you had to have different personas, and you had to completely commit to them, 'cause it was very dangerous if you were found out.
You have your whole life ahead of you, Alison.
I've lived too many lives already.
- I think he was a product of his times.
I think he was a man who was damaged by working in intelligence.
He was a very talented writer.
He was extraordinarily bright.
He is an absolute enigma.
(heavy music)
