The Spy Who Raised Me Podcast

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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 was still in power. 

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In this episode, Jane Craigie and her Dad, Iain Craigie, look back into Iain's career in intelligence to hear his take on what is happening following the upheaval and displacement caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

This was recorded at the height of this summer's UK heatwave before Russia permitted the first shipment of grain from Ukraine. 

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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.

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In this episode, Jane asks her Dad, Iain about his time in Ankara working for GCHQ. His post was senior, he was responsible for staff at the British Embassy in Ankara, and also 100 staff at the Black Sea site at Sinop.

The posting was at a pivotal time for the Middle East, just ahead of the first Gulf War. Arguably, the start of the current wave of unrest in the region. A key responsibility for Iain was regular liaison with the General of the Turkish Army.

There’s a lengthy delay between this and our last podcast... due to technology and the lack of support for Dad to fathom Zoom during the pandemic. But we’re back now...

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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.

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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. 

"Terrorists are looking to bring humanity to  a standstill."

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This episode capture the conversation between Jane Craigie and her father, Iain Craigie, about three precious years based in Istanbul in the 1970s. Iain’s time was as a more senior intelligence manager with GCHQ, their ‘target’ was Russia. Iain explains the start of using satellites for intelligence gathering - courtesy of the Americans who owned them. Discussions include how the British diplomatic service viewed British intelligence in postings like Turkey where there was so much of interest and at stake. 

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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 became Bangladesh (not West as Jane said in the podcast). 

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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.

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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 cared for them for three years, times were hard and she was typically versatile, digging up ‘tatties’ from the farmer’s fields and shooting deer to feed herself and the children.

During the war Grandad, Naylor, was posted to Palestine, when he returned, he bought a beautiful family home in Kingston on Spey. The house is Morven on Lein Road. 

In this podcast Dad talks about his memories of early life in Morayshire. His schooling in Garmouth, Fochabers and then Marischal College in Aberdeen. It’s a fascinating insight into early, post-war life in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland.