Raymond Hawkey time at the Royal College of Art Hawkey first encountered Len Deighton when Deighton (another RCA scholarship student at that time) gatecrashed a literary party that Hawkey was helping to organise. Instead of ejecting the intruder, Hawkey found much in common with him and they became "lifelong friends" (Dempsey, "ibid"). In 1962, Hawkey was Deighton's choice to design the cover of his first novel "The IPCRESS File", which some regard as the template for the covers of all subsequent airport novels. He went on to design covers for Deighton's books, including "Horse Under Water", "Funeral in Berlin" and "The Action
The Ipcress File (film) novel was nameless, but in Chapter 5 he remarks, "My name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been." In the opening scenes of the film, Palmer is shown to care little for authority, to indulge in quick repartee and to have an interest in good food. Newspaper cuttings shown in Palmer's kitchen are actually cookery articles written for "The Observer" by Deighton, who was an accomplished cook himself. In a scene where Palmer prepares a meal, the hands in close-up are really Deighton's. There were two immediate sequels starring Harry Palmer: "Funeral