Buckie, Bletchley and Cyprus

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 intelligence was gathered from this strategically important Mediterranean island.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:16

Welcome to the spy who raised me podcast conversations between the daughter and her father. Yes, you've guessed it, he was a spy

Unknown: 0:29

on Jane Craigie and I'm here with my dad in Craigie in the early 1960s. Well, late 1950s, actually my dad, after a three year spell in the RF, and working in communications and intelligence gathering, he left the RF and joined the tax office in Bucky which is quite moved. Can you tell me because I've never asked this question. And why did that happen? I'm really glad it did because that's where you met man. Yes, sir. How How did you leave the RF and the the glamour of Hong Kong and Borneo to move back to back

Unknown: 1:12

to sharpen Birkin? Well, that that was partially The reason for that was it that your grandfather, my father had a brother, john Craigie, who was brought up in office and was an income tax inspector in Inverness. So at the time to tie that I was looking to, to do something with my life. I had a conversation with with him in Inverness, and he said, he said, Why don't you join the revenue. I know that the inspector down there, Mr. Monroe, and back in And I'm sure if you if you applied for that you would have a chance at getting in to see it so I thought about it for a while and then decided to give it a go. And see that was that was an interesting time anyway in the fishing community with fishing changing and the aftermath of the War of the first of the second world war which which still affected the the community. So anyway, I applied plied and they accepted me. And there we started in, in Bucky that's office and one of the big was a thing at that time they had shared your leave, which meant that landowners and some of them Large landowners like the Countess of seafield had to pay tax on an annual basis. So came to see fields, the states, I'm insured thousands of acres. And she, she had her her tax district was Bucky. So we dealt with all the Schedule II work for the Countess of seafield. And that was very interesting because it brought into contact with with with the almost ability they were there and with huge amounts of land and so on. I think we still have many thousands of acres but but and the other thing that was obvious and in Bucky was that the fishing fleet I mean, they had a really active fishing fleet, small harbour and a lot of the boats locally built JOHN Jordan Bucky and they used to very religious at that time. So in some steam steamboats and some just angels and turn and they used to they used to queue up on a set on a Sunday just before midnight, so they would all get steamed up and you would go down and have a look and there would be 30 or 40 boats waiting to go, go she couldn't go out because it was the Sabbath day and had to wait till till midnight and then they sounded they're all clear and off the check that into the agent of the RC and Satan itself especially if the if the northwind was blowing up the waves and It was a neap tide or something. It was really scary going out.

Unknown: 5:04

I have to apologise. We've got an old jet Russell here. He's he's sort of snoring and sniffling. So if you're wondering what that is, it isn't me and it isn't my dad. So dad, your time in Bucky ended when it had enough of

Unknown: 5:21

taxation, exclusion,

Unknown: 5:23

and that was then the start of your gch career and also the start of your married life. And what did you do? What can you tell us about what you did? Bowman? Oh, in those early years working for GC HQ, what was your role?

Unknown: 5:41

Well, I mean, we were, it was, it was a Cold War era. And so the main preoccupation with, with the intelligence community and also how So the politicians and so on, I mean, everyone was so was so keen to get information about what Russia was doing, and other communist countries. So we had that was our job mainly to try as best we could to get information that would that would explain to movements and so on and so forth. And that was that was quite interesting. Because I mean, I don't think this is comes under the security You know, this secrecy or otherwise, let's say in prison prison podcast Exactly. So so so long ago. I mean, a lot of the a lot of the the information about that era is commonplace. It's appeared in all sorts of books by Stella Remington and other authors. Enemy

Unknown: 7:02

that used to get some odd

Unknown: 7:06

things happening like the Russians were not that well trained at Tatton stages. And when they started foraging about and in Europe, they would have exercises and certain areas. And they used to get lost. But they used to get lost and I mean, in Europe and Europe somewhere and we were trying to find out where they were conducting exercises. So you would you would hear a Russian voice immersing saying, Oh, I know. We don't know where we are in Russian Of course. And, but wait a minute, there's a signpost here, to read the Gita what whatever the signpost said, Oh, yeah, 4040 kilometres the river it was Brussels. So if they would, they were Air travel again. And that because that was VHF that we're using, it was line of sight and it but it used to bounce off. ionosphere stop that. So you get that sort of thing happening. You could listen to people in the middle of Russia, who were using VH VHF and you should never have learned that because it was bouncing off the ionosphere, you'd pick it up. So that was quite interesting. So you

Unknown: 8:29

must have had teams of people sat at desks with radios and wanted the What did the work environment looked like

Unknown: 8:39

that it was just that it was a number of people sitting a with various tasks that looking for certain transmissions. And you can imagine during the Khrushchev was was in control and Kennedy was was the an awful sequence of events just about finished with with nuclear weapons being being set up in Cuba. Well, you can imagine that how much how much they're depended on intelligence to know where where people were going because no one really knew that they had submarines with their nuclear warheads going towards Cuba. So so that was all fortunately, Kennedy was crazy quota. You know, he's a hawk and those down so, so,

Unknown: 9:44

uh, sorry to interrupt, but I'm intrigued as a as a relatively junior member of staff in in that environment. And what sort of insight Did you have from you, you're obviously very knowledgeable about the situation. And some of that's probably been gathered over the years as you've learned more and taken an interest, but yes, at that stage when you were a young man in your 20s, in that environment at the coalface and listening face, yes, trying to crack codes and yeah, you know, to pick up random broadcasts from from Russian national.

Unknown: 10:23

Yeah. And

Unknown: 10:24

what sort of insight Did you have into what you were doing strategically and how that fitted into the national, the National need,

Unknown: 10:33

but, I mean, that was you had enough information to understand what what was involved, I mean, may not have been particular information, but because you had to be aware of what the possibilities were, you had to you had to be given enough information to know that if there was a if there was an intercept, say it That time, if huge national crisis in someone's and someone realised that they had a submarine or something that listened to a submarine, it would have to have enough background to be able to translate that into, into an intelligence, a awareness of what what was happening. So it was very much it was very much a case that you didn't need to know everything. But you knew enough to be aware of what the targets were that you were. You were concerned with an interested in. So it was, yeah, you you had enough knowledge to know, the fuller picture.

Unknown: 11:43

Yeah. And in terms of skills that I mean, that takes you know, to have spent most of your career being secretive and having the integrity and self discipline not to share despite, you know, having young children that would always be intrigued by what you do as well. Your friends and family. So integrity is one of the skills and practical skills. I know you've talked about some some particularly insula, people that were very good at maths and very happy to be listening to Morse code and the other transmissions and just happy in their world listening to and interpreting what they were listening to or receiving and and then decoding it. What other skills did good intelligence officers that were either at the listening stations or those that were much more diplomatically engaged? What are the skills that were needed?

Unknown: 12:40

Well, there's, as always with intelligence, it's a it's a framework of inputs, if you like with with various various skills at various stages, and I think, I think what we were doing, you had to have an awareness of example to move Because if you were assessing a band of frequencies for, for some sort of target, and you would you would have to have some indication perhaps from other intelligence sources that there was movement here or there was, it was flights taking off here so that you were primed. So you knew roughly, you know, in that huge spectrum of, of awareness, what was happening and that would feed through the intelligence agencies, and I mean, these the people you're talking about who who are looking at cores and so on, they provide a unique because they most of them had, most of them had been through University Of course, and some of them could speak, speak languages and we're fluent at languages but they were Very, very insular. They didn't share the information they had. They didn't have much the work. The working environment was very much a person sitting at a desk, trying to try to crack some, some type of transmission. I mean, Alan Turing was was he was incredible what he achieved. But there were lots of those people who were sitting down to break into, into ciphered broadcasts and so you have computers. latterly computers have done so much. To be able to, to understand what people are doing, but it was that it was very much parts of intelligence gathering, quite often isolated, you didn't know what was happening there. But in the end, because you were, you were at the point where you could You could intercept broadcasts and so on, you had to have some of that background so that you could do that. And do it comprehensively and with some knowledge of what the outcome could have been into.

Unknown: 15:14

And, and you're, the last thing you are is intellect. So I can I can't imagine you sitting at one of those listening stations with headphones on without thinking, I need more from my career than this. And yeah, I suppose that's a good segue into your next move, which was over to Cyprus, which and you departed the UK to posting in Cyprus with GC HQ in February 1965. So tell me about that journey and and also, about the site procedure arrived into,

Unknown: 15:53

yeah, that was

Unknown: 15:56

a as you say it was it was in the early Six days. And Cyprus was a totally different, different experience to what I'd had in and the UK was a different target for one thing. And of course, that at that, at that stage I was becoming a prime importance to to the civilised world to Europe to America to you know, I mean, it was just almost all to do with oil, how to procure it, how to make sure this, that supply was ongoing. And of course, the Middle East is one of the biggest producers of, of oil, Saudi Arabia produced huge, huge amounts of, of high quality grade oil, but in Iraq and Syria and so on. They have

Unknown: 17:01

have huge

Unknown: 17:03

reservoirs of oil to which they were exploiting. But the problem there was that the other political machinations that were going on the Russians would, would have wanted to get as much oil as possible from that situation. And there was just a lot of competition to secure supplies of oil that were that were experiment as it could be. But we're also safe.

Unknown: 17:30

So I suppose Cyprus from a I mean, this is this is all to do with the physical location so pretty stuck out an island stuck out in the Mediterranean. Yes was logistically and strategically in a good position for you to have an intelligence yes office or for GHQ to have exactly its office.

Unknown: 17:50

It was an IT WAS AN a good being a nice island to visit an advantage and the fact that It was reasonably close to Iraq and to Syria and to the Lebanon and so on, because that was all, you know, an area of interest for us the Brits, and Americans

Unknown: 18:15

very familiar as we are five and a half decades on. Yeah. And the same, same issues, still existing the same geography to locally,

Unknown: 18:27

locally,

Unknown: 18:28

and it's over the same, some of the same factors, just oil,

Unknown: 18:34

oil, money, I mean, look at Saudi Arabia, how much they've controlled the politics of the Middle East and, and Iraq and Syria and, to some extent, Turkey. It's all been to do with with with that, securing supplies of oil, natural gas and, and so on, and is the say Cyprus was in a very convenient position with with the, with the whole political scene economic scene in the Middle East is changing so radically.

Unknown: 19:15

And also you you arrived in Cyprus at a time where the island was in conflict as well. So it was it was around about I don't know, when the conflict between the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots started. Yeah. But it must have been around that time. And so you had this international global this global context and your HUD also had a very local conflict context as well. That's a Well,

Unknown: 19:43

I mean, the the island there's always been a lot of strife on the island because of the Greek interest and Cyprus and Turkish and jest and when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. That would have been at the time of the First World War, maybe at the end of the First World War. The Ottomans ceded control to Britain. That was an 1870s. I think it was. So from that point, the resolve is an issue between Greek, Greece and Turkey as to how that should be, should be worked out, because the Cyprus was invaded by the Turks at one stage. But prior prior to that, there was Greece was very keen to, to become involved more in Cyprus, because the British had been in control of politics and the economics of Cyprus many years since 1982. 1878 with a British High Commissioner, and then subsequently the the forces were set up at Akrotiri and dhekelia. And so where you were born that happened, and and that that changed a politics and in Cyprus, it was, it was a very odd place to live and work because the Turkish and and the Greek communities, they're very hospitable, hospitable people. And but the they started realising that unless something was done, they were losing, losing what they had in Cyprus, so that at that point, the Greek Cypriot decided To go for a gnosis with, with Greece, which is joining up with Greece and and becoming, becoming a strong power with the power of Greece and the power of Greek Cypriots, so that that pretension on the island because the Turkish people in in half the island, the northern half of there, and they will say, well, can't have this because Greece will dictate what happens in Cyprus. There's an awful lot of unrest and the Greek Cypriots had their their political arm if you like if that uprising, looking for joining with Greece and on a on a sort of political basis, and grievous was the name of their The commander of the terrorists because it was a terrorist organisation. And a lot a lot of soldiers were killed, but British soldiers and lots of Turkish soldiers work out.

Unknown: 23:16

So there was a good there was a strong military presence inside there's a strong military

Unknown: 23:21

presence. Yes presence, there was mainly army but also Air Force at Akrotiri. So and that that continued right through until until quite late date so we think probably into the 80s after the Stila station. But yeah, and that that was a very difficult time carry us who was Greek Orthodox leader, and of course churches of all always got, you know, heavy political sway. So, and the British government realised that with Makarios and grievous and, and ioka, which was the name of the group that we're trying to, to, to put pressure on, on British to give up their interest and for Greece to join me there that that went out a number of years ago it was it was quite dangerous times and Cyprus because the Turkish, the Turkish enclave at Famagusta

Unknown: 24:35

was was

Unknown: 24:38

a wholly Turkish. There were no no Greeks in that area. But unfortunately it it was on the main route from Famagusta to the army base, that night, signal Regiment, and also to Akrotiri and dhekelia in turn, so To the Turkish, some of the Turkish people military mainly used to take potshots there from the battlements as we went to work at night signal regiment. I think I've told you before about one instance where we we always went and normally when, and convoys are with two or three people in a vehicle to go to work. And one morning, we were going to work quite early. And one of the, one of the operators who was going in another car was shot by by a Turkish rifleman, on the battlements of this and the bullet went through the, through the car, ricochet and ran the chassis and and went up with three a passage And it was okay. He was okay. He was okay. But you can imagine, panic, you know, blood everywhere going to work at the government hospital but and that that was fairly common practice to him you know he had a shootings from the Turkish Turkish side so yeah and the green line is they had it and to north and and and the north and south of the island that was heavily militarised. So they had, they had UN forces there to ethnic and then British army they had the Greeks and the Turks. I think they were all sort of there to keep protagonists apart. But I mean that the predicament of the Turkish and the Turkish people who were by far the fewer if you I think the word Twice as many clicks separators are where the Turkish Cypriots and they were the Greek Cypriots used to cut off their power supply. They wouldn't supply fuel and so it was really difficult for the Turkish people who used to when any of us went across the green line and into North of Cyprus to Cape Andreas or Bella bass places like that, you would get a you get a 50 or 60 Turkish people with petrol cans begging you to to syphon syphon some fuel off so that they could survive. So the whole thing was was exacerbated by that sort of problem on the island. But then they they came to an agreement the the Greeks and the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriot so and I think it's an easy truth that at the moment, you could say, but still with Greece and just the den and being the the main parties, you know, the main

Unknown: 28:18

power base.

Unknown: 28:20

I mean, that's just absolutely fascinating. I have no idea that the country or the island on which I was born was was so strategically important. But I'm also really interested in the human story. So your story, I know you've told me the the tale of of driving over to Cyprus with mum. You know, and this is testament and an example of another one of your adventurous trips. So painting the picture 1965

Unknown: 28:57

to suffer.

Unknown: 28:57

My mum was pregnant with me And dad decides it would be a really good idea to drive to Cypress in an Austin Healey sprite and the softer with a soft arm in February. So dad just tell us the, about that journey and why you decided to do it. And and also by your, you know, your life with mum and having me in Cyprus. So your story of living in

Unknown: 29:25

yes and getting there. I mean, that was different per well. She was from a background of, you know, brought up in the fishing community and, and she hadn't been a way from home before sir. So we started discuss it and, and Cyprus is very glamorous, a place to go and work so and she was up for that. I mean, she she realised that, you know, Cyprus or the sunshine and the beaches and you know, the rest, you can do so and We set off in February of all times a to drive across and to Italy was was where we were picking up the ferry. So anyway, we went there and it was heavy snow most of the way because drum brakes on on the newly sprayed so they got wetter and wetter and you had to keep pumping the brakes. And over the I'm trying to think what pass it was simplon pass one of the one of the persons anyway, was horrendous, had a track that they were keeping open, but it was I guess about a car and a half's width. So you could see marks on on this Bayless no it just must have realised it must have been six eight feet deep. When snow ploughs gone there's only way to get back other vehicles other than getting the one coming up here the Rieveschl way back the bottom was to Nigeria to some of the some of the little caves other vehicles made on the on the drift side. So I had to say to my hold on Well, my will will we're just gonna be a bit bumpy here. As we ate

Unknown: 31:28

every sinner I feel it's, it's sick. So it

Unknown: 31:32

wasn't a time for morning sickness on top no morning sickness.

Unknown: 31:35

That's right. So, but anyway, we got we got through that and then the other side and then it became we drove down the eastern side of the western side of Italy. All the way down to Naples. One adventure. Oh, it's fantastic. And then we we booked in the cab saying to Well, maybe we'll find a nice hotel nearby. So we did we found this wonderful hotel and in Naples it was right next to the correct close to the docks and it was fantastic place that marble everywhere was it was tough No, no sir. So there is melanin a is constant this wonderful place and relaxing after the journey. And where I can remember standing in the balcony overlooking the docks, fair bit away. And I was watching these these women who a lot of women around me would disappear discussing this thing I wonder what they're doing. And then what they were doing Of course they were ladies of the night and because it was by the adults they were playing with trade and and and well market. She said what they do. I said well does the waiting for sailors to come off and then they go in and spend a couple hours and She was she couldn't believe it. She said now that kind of bereft

Unknown: 33:06

doesn't happen in Bucky

Unknown: 33:08

Bucky you watch so anyways so that there was an eventually we drove across to Brindisi on the west side of which was great because I mean it was you can get into Mediterranean containers No, no, no mountain passes. So we got there and and sailed on the mysap Yeah, it was called through that we go through the current canal. So, but that was that was quite exciting. And then of course you you lived in Cyprus heaven. Oh, it was incredible. You know the sand beaches The Freedom no people virtually then this is like a an approach is now packed full of high rise and so we used to go there fairly often and there was nothing there except for one old fisherman he used to. He used to catch some fish come in and barbecue it for you. Just amazing bass and para lemony. I think I've mentioned that to uj where they were a little bit hostile there because that was a Greek essay, and they used to look suspiciously at any, any British people who were heading out to Napa and they always seem to be sitting having coffees and, and the verandas of the of the restaurants. And it was, we'd been there a few weeks and over chat chatting to some other people who'd been Longer saying stuff a lot of people were missing fingers and hands and said, Oh yeah, that's because they use dynamite to fish. So so they're used to like the fuse and check it in and then and then wait for the question of, you know, efficient I'll be standing then they used to pick them up. Unfortunately, if fuses were a little bit shorter use these to go off a number of people. They used to say a para laminate, so they are. So that was that was quite interesting, but all change now. I mean, you look at a map unknown photographs just so so different.

Unknown: 35:44

And what were your enduring memories about living in community because you've always been somebody that doesn't just live the expat life. You know, during all of our upbringing, you've you've never just tied yourself to the embassy into the diplomatic community in the military community, you've always gone to explore the country that you live in, but also the culture without the people. Yeah,

Unknown: 36:11

yeah. Yeah. Well, that was interesting because we, the second the second house we lived in was an FM Agusta and of course, as I said earlier that that was a mixture of Greek Cypriots. And this, this Turkish enclave, which is quite close to it. And that was interesting in itself, because I was I was, I bought a BMW there and you and it was, I mean, it was such an easy place. There's a theme there is the NASCAR fast and and available and cheap because there was no tax. So and this guy cost us who had his BMW agency Then say to the flat, we lived in a great big flat and second floor. And I started looking at the cars and say that looks good that looks good turn and the end we bought this BMW but cost us who was Greek. He was an interesting guy cuz he had friends in the Turkish enclave and they used to play football. And it was telling me the story one day over a few glasses if it was saying I used to I used to play there, he said, but he said he got as the years went past you have to be careful. He said there's one Turkish defender that we used to play against. He was an enormous guy and he was tough. He says in one that I can remember playing, playing one match against them in the tech And the Turkish employee, and he said, I was getting fed up with this job every time I attack all this, this huge Turkish guy just crunched me. He said I was flattened so many times he said, so I got fed up. So in the end, I waited until he was on a bus me and neck and I took them up. And he came down like a, like a tree. And he was so mad. He said, he was so mad. You'd have killed me that he said I gotta run. Run around there. The the Turkish enclave, and this huge Turk coming after me trying to catch me. He came in to the end of the Greek bait. He didn't he said he didn't catch me but it was it was touching go. But can you remember that? Talk about Easy, easy living. Must take that. photograph it Have that BMW because I used to park it. And there was a garriage underneath the flat. And we used to party quite a bit. You were a young you were quite young. So we used to, we used to party. And I remember coming back late, late one night, and you had to babysitter and we came back and I I'd had a few, I think so. I parked the car outside instead of in an underground garage and went to bed and about an hour later there's this huge bang outside. And I thought Nah, surely not. So this new BMW is sitting there where I bought it with a load of, of

Unknown: 39:55

steel for buildings.

Unknown: 39:58

Right through the They the rear window at the front window and this guy had been driving a trailer load of reinforcing steel lost control that cost us who was it was only 50 years down the road he had it and so so he's sprint is sprinting up said nevermind, nevermind Mr. Kay said we will buy the car you will get a new car and that's exactly what you did. But two weeks later I got a new red BMW. Well lovely man. Lovely man. He took a bet there was a they had a scheme. So he took he took this this one and I said you'd never be able to. There's so much damage. And he just touched as low as as much to see you it. So it went into the workshops. And it was in there for a few weeks. And it came back out. CV nine oh, it was a number And, and I was walking past as I saw this bread BMW that looked like a new BMW CV Nine, eight. So I went NSF and I said, I said that. That's mica. He said, Well, I told you we would do it. And they had some sort of scheme that they didn't have to pay the tax if it was a picker to he sold it on a new car.

Unknown: 41:27

So he did well, after he did. He did right by you. And he did, right.

Unknown: 41:31

Jake burns, right. And then there was the funny how you get memories come back in 1960. You weren't 6667.

Unknown: 41:48

I used to play tennis with this lovely

Unknown: 41:51

man who, who worked with me. Jerry Dalton is a very erudite Very clever guy played excellent tennis.

Unknown: 42:04

By the way he he was in.

Unknown: 42:08

He one day he were chatting away and he said, Oh, my daughter's coming out tomorrow. I've got to go and pick her up at Nicosia airport. It's a I think it was an afternoon flight. So So I said, Oh, yeah, let's go. And so he saw um, when he left And off he went to pick it up. And it's the saddest story because he he told me afterwards that he went there and it was obvious something wrong because you know, the airport staff and so on. They were all flooding around a telephoning and so no my mobile phones and but a an eventually he He went in our Sunday intellicus or something wrong and said, Yeah, we've lost touch with the with it was a boy. A boy. Yeah, boy. We've lost touch with the flight. We don't know what's happened. So he, he said it to come back to Famagusta were allowed to wait, see what went on. So I can always remember, there was enough for a meal shop and sold cars just just along from our flat. And he said, I went in there. And I stood waiting and they all had their radio zone, listening, listening, and he said, that's when I discovered that the plane had gone down ministry. He said there's no survivor. They decided it was a terrorist. That was 1967. Did that put you all on high alert? Well, it did some extent of course, it wasn't nobody was I had tuned into that that situation with, you know, people blowing up flights and so but but after the after the accident you're well well most well known as cousin would have been a that's my mom yes yeah yeah she mom's cousin got the report of of what what did happen after all the tests and so the theory is that the I think they did I think they got I'm not sure how they got the information by the way because it was quite deep and the mad and anyway they came back with this seat by seat and an explanation of what happened so and and one of the persons is actually sitting on the seat that exploded

Unknown: 45:01

1967 is all of these tragedies Hmm, they continue they enjoy your days. But I suppose our knowledge and our way of understanding them is better now with black boxes and satellites and flight tracking. Whereas back then piecing together would have put it happened a terrorist attack but yeah, very, very difficult.

Unknown: 45:28

Very difficult and that was a Neeraj. I mean, during the you know, things like this podcast, really, historical issues, you know, and subject just after my father died and 1970 was 1967 67. So and I had to go back to history and in Kings So I went back I flew back and asked if you know, I had to get back to work and the flight was from London to, to anchor and then and then you got a connection down to Cypress and as we were coming in to anchor told you the story before is is you know after the funeral everything I was on my way back so we're coming in to, to land a Dunker in looking at the Windows as we landed, and the tags everywhere. Not one or two, but I don't know 50 or 60 or something like that. And they were all strategically placed either side of the runway. So we're we're asking the cabin crew what's what's going on? Look, I mean, these aren't altars. And she said, we don't know. We don't know. So anyway, we landed. And as soon as we landed and disembarked, somebody came and said there's been a coup happened last night. And the generals had taken over the country. So not uncommon in Turkey, not uncommon. And again, we were, we were we had to stay there for I think it was two nights, maybe three. And then we got the Sarah cam down a bit, I think and, and the coup established itself. So we, we got the connection to Cyprus. But of course, it was because of the situation the politics in turn and we were quite interested in What, what Greece is doing and what the Turks were doing too. So,

Unknown: 48:06

so they added even more complexity to a complex situation. One thing because we're gonna round off this podcast in a minute, but one thing I was very interested in when we were chatting earlier that when before the podcast was, you talked about the Morse code. So you said that during your time in Cyprus, one of the things that you were one of your duties your team's duty was to listen to Iraq. And you talked about the the Morse code the clipped Morse code. Yeah, that the Iraqis were using. Could you tell us a little bit about them?

Unknown: 48:43

Yeah, that was because obviously, we were did training and Morse code is one of the skills we had but Morse code is Morse code and and you know, for anyone who reads Morse code Anyone could read it if you've done the same sort of, but unfortunately and Iraq, they used a different form of Morse code. And it was called box walks. And it meant that that instead of having definite dots, like an S is the digit a, they would they would some of the symbols that we crowd together. See, it was like a totally different language. So we had to learn that when we went to Cyprus festival, they put you on a month, or something to get used to it. And to be honest, I never really got used to, but there were some, there were some who were really good at it. They just had that ability to. So yeah, so that was that was quite interesting.

Unknown: 49:53

absolutely fascinating. Well, I think it's time for your lunch because of Africa. She here for an hour and I'm sure the people that are gonna be listening to this podcast will be ready to go and have a break themselves. If you join us next time, we'd be very glad to have you and thank you very much again that Transcribed by https://otter.ai