1978 to 1980 on ITV (Yorkshire)

SUNDAY NIGHT ROY MARSDEN/RAY LONNEN vehicle. There were several Sandbagger agents; Lonnen was Sandbagger One, the head agent in the field, engaged in typical late 70s spies vs Soviets stuff. Marsden was an ex-Sandbagger One Neil Burnside, now head of the organization, under the MI5 umbrella. Had an American contact in the CIA a la Felix Leiter, played by a ubiquitous American actor whose name escapes us. Several prissy aristocrats were the overlords of the organization, whom Burnside and co always had to circumvent every episode. It was almost purely studio bound, consisting of Burnside’s office, his superior’s office, and the general area where the rest of the Sandbagger agents hung out, but once in a while they’d go “abroad” to a back-projected blue screen, perhaps left over from THE SAINT (see above) that was supposed to be Poland, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Gibraltar or Malta.

Tags: Ray Lonnen, Roy Marsden, Stories all about spies, Stuff that's hush-hush