He became the editor of the RCA’s student magazine ARK and assertively dragged the content away from high art and nostalgic Victoriana. Because of his experience in the RAF film unit he was aghast by the archaic attitudes and snobbish anti-commercialisation of the RCA. He said in 1995: “At the RCA the role of the art director was not acknowledged, neither was the existence of photography . . . While studying I managed to spend some of my vacation time working . . . in various London advertising agencies where I found a rebellion – against such things as Victorian typefaces – that somewhat mirrored my own feelings . . . I could find no one on the staff of the RCA who wanted to know anything about the world into which students would one day have to fit.”

Along with his RCA contemporary Joe Tilson, he was one of the first post-war students to illustrate the first glimmerings of London’s pop scene. This was particularly centred around the jazz clubs featuring black jazz musicians and in the Italian restaurants of Soho. Much to his tutor’s annoyance Deighton produced a photograph on the cover of ARK10 and a feature on Hopalong Cassidy from an American comic. He commented: “They called me ‘the photographer’ and they didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

After leaving the RCA and working in advertising agencies as a photographer and illustrator, Deighton wrote his first novel The Ipcress File in 1960. It was published in 1962 just as the RCA pop artists were at their most prolific. It became one of the biggest best sellers of the decade and in 1965 was made into a hugely successful film starring Michael Caine. The novel’s plot highlights the street smart, sophisticated working-class ex-convict Harry Palmer and his lack of deference to his public school-accented superiors. While in advertising he was often the only senior employee who had not been to Eton, and along with his experiences at the RCA it inspired his writing: “The Ipcress File is about spies on the surface, but it’s also really about a grammar school boy among public school boys and the difficulties he faces.”

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