ACCORDING to actor Ricky Tomlinson, MI5 were so desperate for undercover agents they recruited jovial Countdown host Richard Whiteley. Surely our intelligence services could do better than that.

If they really want agents who can keep a secret and refuse to divulge information when under pressure, any teenager they pluck off the streets would probably do.

I am convinced my 14-year-old is a spook-in-training. If he is going out, all information about what he will be doing and with whom is a closely-guarded secret.

“Who are you going to the party with?” I’ll ask casually, in the hope of eliciting an iota of information. His answer is always: “People.”

“What people?” I ask. “Just people,” he says. He looks at me disdainfully when I habitually follow this up with my favourite joke: “Just people? That’s good. Not Kim Jong-un or Bashar al-Assad then?”

He doesn’t find it funny: “What’s the point in telling you anything? You don’t know any of them.”

I am accused of harassing him, even over the most innocent of queries. “What would you like for breakfast?” I asked recently.

“Questions, you’re always asking me questions,” he barked. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

It’s the same routine when I ask about what sort of day he had at school. It’s usually a grunt or a “Fine.” But occasionally, he makes the mistake of saying something more revealing, such as: “Yeah, good” or “Terrible.”

Such tantalising information begs the follow-up question: “What happened?” But the answer is always the same: “School happened.”

He and his fellow spies-in-the-making are the best connected generation of teenagers in the history of the world. They have Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and WhatsApp on their smartphones and laptops.

Communication is swift and constant. And the need for secrecy has never been greater. Conversations become hushed if I’m in earshot. Doors are shut as I walk past. Mobile phones are locked or turned screen down, in case I should see any messages which flash up.

I am treated like a suspected traitor in a John le Carre novel, or a villain in a Bond movie.

On Friday night, Albert got a message from one of his mysterious friends concerning an assignment in a nearby town.

It involved a trip to the cinema and lunch out on Saturday. He was forced to release some of this information, of course, because it involved me giving him money and also providing a lift.

The lift is always to the bus station in the next town, not to the town where they are going. And I am always instructed to drop him off round the corner from the station.

“What film are you going to see?” I asked innocently. “I don’t know,” he said, aghast. “Well, where are you going to eat then?”

“Questions, questions. What’s with all these questions?” he snapped. “Why can’t you just get off my back? It’s like the Inquisition round here.”

All information is released on a strictly need-to-know basis and, as far as Albert is concerned, I don’t need to know much. But I did insist he had to tell me what time I needed to pick him up: “I’m busy later on, so you’ll have to let me know,” I told him just as we were about to get into the car.

He, of course, didn’t have a clue. It was his friend who was arranging it all, he said. But this was where I had the upper hand, because he wasn’t going anywhere without a lift from me. It was a bargaining tool I introduced into the interrogation.

Eventually, he agreed to go off and phone his friend – out of earshot, of course – and check. He returned to the car looking sheepish.

“It’s not today, it’s next Saturday,” he said. “Well, how was I to know?” he protested. “I got a message last night asking what I was doing on Saturday. I assumed he meant today.”

This lot might make great raw recruits, but MI5 is clearly going to have its work cut out.

It’s just as well that I ask so many questions, I told Albert as we trudged back into the house: “And you really should pay more attention to detail,” I advised.

In the meantime, just call me Moneypenny.