Leslie Harrison Lambert, known in public as A. J. Alan, was an English stage magician, intelligence officer, short story writer and radio broadcaster. At the beginning of World War II he worked in naval intelligence at Bletchley Park. Lambert contacted a member of the British Broadcasting Company to suggest he might tell one of his own short stories on the radio. This was accepted and so, as A. J. Alan, he broadcast “My Adventure in Jermyn Street,” on 31 January 1924. Following his immediate success, he quickly became one of the most popular broadcasting personalities of the time. He went to considerable trouble over writing each story, taking a couple of months over each one, and only broadcasting about five times a year. He carefully constructed an apparently extemporary, conversational, style making his stories seem like anecdotes concerning strange events that had happened to him. The endings were whimsical and unexpected.