Sandy's Blog
A German Spy in Cromarty!
by Casagrandeblog - 11:23 on 02 April 2013
There’s one element of the Homes and Heritage programme that is not advertised on the website or any of the posters. That’s because it’s not an ‘event’ that’s open to the public. Instead it’s something that takes place over many hours in my sitting room. It’s the ‘digitising’ of a collection of audiocassettes belonging to the Courthouse Museum. On them are conversations recorded in 1994 with various elderly Cromarty residents reminiscing about days gone by. What our project is doing with them is transferring them onto a computer’s hard disk so that they will survive a lot longer. (That’s the conversations, of course, not the Cromarty residents).
I have only listened to a couple of hours of these so far, but already I am fascinated by some of the tales. The master story-teller (or should that be ‘mistress’) is of course Mrs Jean Newell, whose memory in her late 80s was as sharp as ever, and who could take us back to before the First World War. 
There are too many tales to list here, but one that really caught my attention was Mrs Newell’s account of being a wee girl before World War I and hearing, one evening, the sound of wonderful singing coming from the street outside her house. When she went outside, there was a gentleman - a German gentleman - dressed in immaculate evening dress and performing hits of the day in a magnificent tenor voice. Mrs Newell couldn’t decide which impressed her more - the fine singing voice or the formal clothes. She says she had never seen a man in evening dress before.
On the audiocassette Mrs Newell is telling this tale to Eric and Muriel Malcolm. Having given it some consideration, all three come to the conclusion that the singer was prpbably a German spy - in town to cast an eye over the naval fortifications and defences!
I wonder how much he learned, and if he ever got the information back to the Kaiser?
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