Talks 

2025 talks season

The fourth talk of our 2025 season will be on Friday 22nd August 2025 at 7:30pm in Crail Kirk Hall.

Craig McHugh's talk is titled: "Silent Save for the Waves: The Hidden Cold War Legacy of JSSL Crail"

In the late 1950s, the coastal burgh of Crail became the unlikely home of a top-secret British military school: the Joint Services School for Linguists (JSSL). While the North Sea whispered against its shores, young National Servicemen were learning to decipher Soviet communications in a Cold War battle of intelligence. Overseen by a faculty of war-displaced Eastern European refugees—some with pasts as enigmatic as the languages they taught—JSSL Crail played a crucial role in Britain’s Cold War strategy. Its graduates would go on to work in intelligence, their training influencing key global events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis. But just as suddenly as it arrived, the school vanished, leaving behind ghostly ruins and a local community forever changed. This chapter in Crail's history offers a perfect example of local and global forces colliding in the most unexpected way.

Tickets can be purchased in advance in the Museum or online, or on the door at the Kirk Hall from 7pm.

Tickets cost £5 and include tea, coffee or soft drink.

Further talks as follows:

• 5th September 2025 - Royal Naval Aircraft That Flew From HMS Jackdaw - a talk by Commander David Hobbs

• 19th September 2025 - Hew Lorimer & The Little Houses Scheme in Crail & the wider East Neuk - a talk by Ian Buchanan Smith