Iain Craigie and daughter Jane revisit Cyprus after over 50 years.  The island is now divided between the Greek and Turkish ruled areas, after separation in 1974. The island remains strategically hugely important, given its location in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and the unrest in the middle east. Iain and Jane, also visited Famagusta, where the Craigies lived in the late 1960s. As part of one of these visits they went to Varosha, the ghost town where Greek families fled in 1974. A haunting place.  Please note, this was recorded when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan&nbs ..read more

In this episode, Iain Craigie remembers his early life - in the 1940s and ‘50s in a little North Eastern Scottish village,  Kingston-on-Spey. The rich conversation with his daughter, Jane Craigie, covers a young boy’s relationships with nature, the long-lost shopkeepers and the ebb and flow, and immense freedom of living in a coastal village at the end, and immediately after World War II. If you love conversation, our natural environment and Scotland, we hope that you’ll enjoy this episode ..read more

A rich conversation between Jane Craigie and her father, Iain Craigie covering Iain’s two postings in Hong Kong in the late 1950s and late 1980s.  Not only does the discussion delve into China’s might in our world, it also covers the power of politics, community and health. The podcast is fascinating and also gives inspiration to anyone thinking that old age should diminish a person. Iain proves that it clearly doesn’t ..read more

In this episode, Jane Craigie talks to Iain Craigie about the instability of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the coming together of the international intelligence community to create the facility at Pine Gap in Australia to understand and mitigate this threat.  The discussion also covers Iain's views on how power might shift towards countries like China as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. "China is in a very strong position," he said.  Iain talks about the value of diplomats and international intelligence community. terrorism, about truly feeling for a country, its land and its people ..read more

In this first episode, Jane Craigie talks to her father, Iain Craigie, about his early life in Intelligence in the 1950s. His career started when he signed up for voluntary service as a Radio Officer in the RAF. His preliminary training was at Beaumanor Hall and Bletchley Park. The primary targets for surveillance, the Russians ..read more

In this conversation between Jane Craigie and her father, Iain Craigie, the discussion centres on Iain’s posting to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia between 1979 and 1980. Iain was based there as one of five GCHQ operatives. Their role was to train Saudi Arabia’s national guard - mainly Bedouin - on how to set up the country’s own intelligence systems.  The posting was challenging, because most of the tutees were near illiterate, and the subject matter was highly technical. The time there was volatile and part of their work was to try and intercept transmissions and movements across the 1,100 mile ..read more

In this podcast, accompanied by the snoring of Lily, a 16-year-old Jack Russell, Jane explores the early part of her father, Iain’s, life in the tax office in Buckie, in North East Scotland. The conversation charts the start of his career at Bletchley Park, and his first GCHQ posting, as a young married man to Cyprus, with a new baby (Jane).  The episode discusses how intelligence officers in the 1960s ‘listened’ to gather information with what is now considered very rudimentary technology. It also explores the geographic location of Cyprus, the Greek/Turkish Cypriot conflict, and what i ..read more

My Dad, Iain Craigie was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia where his father had worked as an engineer. In 1939, aged one, the family moved back to their native Morayshire in north east Scotland. Their first home was a rented one bedroom cottage in Urquhart, near Elgin - by then there were five members of the family, my grandfather, Naylor, and grandmother, Susan (nee Junner).  The cottage was on the flight path of German bombers flying back to base from London and Cambridge, so Iain and his brother, Grant and sister, Jean, were evacuated two miles down the road to live with Miss Jackson. She c ..read more

In this episode Iain Craigie talks to daughter, Jane Craigie, about his posting to Hong Kong with a secondment to Labuan. It was in the late 1950s, so WWII was still fresh in minds and diplomacy. Iain’s bases were Direction Finding (DF) Stations - rudimentary huts using HF radio. His Hong Kong posting was near the Chinese border. The conversation will take you through the importance of DF stations, how they were connected, the British intelligence interest in, and the secrecy of the Chinese; and the ‘fun’ these young RAF men had aged early 20s. Iain’s lucky still to be with us - one of their p ..read more

In this episode, father and daughter, Iain and Jane Craigie talk about life in India from 1969-72, holidaying in India’s hill stations, into the Hindu Kush and Afghanistan. Their return to India in February 2020, and why GCHQ had, and still has, an interest in the region.  The conversation spans who the intelligence ‘targets’ were - India and Russia - and how the terrain made ‘listening’ extremely challenging. Iain and Jane also talk through the Indian caste system, the religious tensions, which still exist, and how you identify a spy at a cocktail party! NB - addendum - East Pakistan b ..read more