The Secret Service had two novels published as part of its only original existing merchandise, written by John Theydon, a pseudonym for John William Jennison in 1969. Born in London on 11th July 1911, Theydon was an author of more than than 100 paperbacks in the 1940s and 1950s - usually western novels but entered science fiction writing under the name Edgar Rees Kennedy; Conquerers Of Venus (1951) and The Mystery Planet (1952). Other names included Matthew C Bradford and George Sheldon Browned, which he used for the 1954 novels Invasion From Space and The Yellow Planet. John Theydon, a pen name he first used in 1946, was his best-known name.
Theydon wrote the Supercar novel Supercar on the Black Diamond Trail in 1965 for World Distributors. This led him into writing the two Stingray novels Danger In The Deep and The Deadly Alliance before being commissioned to write the first 11 paperback novels of SUPERMARIONATION for Armarda. Stingray and Stingray and the Monster, published in 1965 and 1966 were the first of these books. This followed with Thunderbirds, Calling Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds: Ring Of Fire (1966) and Lady Penelope: The Albanian Affair (1967), whilst World Distributors published Operation Asteroids and Lost World (1966). Theydon would also publish Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur and The Angels and the Creeping Enemy for Armarda books once again. He didn't work on the Joe 90 novels The Raiders and In Revenge, which was covered by Tod Sullivan and Howard Elson.
The first novel, The Destroyer, features the adventure of Father Unwin to track down, as the blurb reads, the "dreaded" destroyer with his book and the minimised Matthew. The second book, The V.I.P., was 128 pages long and like its predecessor was printed in paperback and was nowhere near as good as the other SUPERMARIONATION books he had previously written. He died in Exmouth, Devon on 8th April 1980, aged 68.
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The Secret Service: The Vault
Non-FictionThe Secret Service was a 1960s British children's TV series created by Gerry Anderson and the team of Century 21 studios in Slough, from the makers of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Space: 1999. This was the final of his television series to feat...
