Shortly after the publication of David Scott’s article, Damning evidence of state collusion with Nazi Germany to racially profile Caithness Travellers as part of ‘Tinker Experiment’ , I was contacted by Caithness resident, Eleanor Leishman, who informed me that she had ‘something that I might be interested in’. Intrigued and excited in equal measure – could this be another of the jigsaw that would further consolidate my assertions that Wolfgang Abel undertook his racial research with the blessing of the authorities of the time? – I swiftly made contact with Eleanor who, amongst other interesting facts, informed me that she was the niece of Ina Baikie, a school teacher at Weydale School [1] in 1938, a woman who had written Teaching in the Thirties an aide-memoire [2] as a reminder for generations to come about her time at the school including a record of Abel’s racial studies and her and the Gypsy Travellers he sought to study, responses to him, his wife and his assistant.
Weydale school and grounds (Google Maps, 2024) now converted into a family home.
Returning to school after the summer break on 23rd August 1938, Ina was greeted by two large caravans parked up in the playground area. The occupants, who informed her that they had the permission of the Education Authority to use the grounds as a base during their time in Caithness, were Herr Wolfgang Abel, his wife and their research assistant [or secretary as he was described to Ina]. It would be a further three days before Abel and his team began profiling the pupils of Weydale school. Despite her misgivings, and given that they had the blessing of the Education Authorities, Ina had no option but to facilitate the process. Ina ensured the visit was recorded by way of the school log.
Excerpt from Weydale School Log Book (August 1938:69):CC/5/3/54/4. Courtesy of Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives
As noted in Teaching in the Thirties, Ina was not alone in her misgivings.
The trouble began when the Professor and his aides tried to interview the tinkers and became self-constituted Torquemadas. The tinkers would have no dealings with the Germans, as some of them were veterans of World War One. One of them produced an old rifle and threatened the Germans with grievous bodily harm if they didn’t go back to the Fatherland. Wolfgang immediately went to the police and asked for protection against threatening behaviour, non-co-operation and illegal use of firearms. It was surely ironic that a police car escorted these Germans to every tinker camp and the tinkers complied, under duress, to have their photos taken, skulls measured, families indexed, all for sixpence as payment for their compliance (Reid 1975:3).
Local media also picked up on the tensions and concerns and mused as to why no other publications had questioned more deeply the purposes of Abel’s visit and studies.
John O’ Groat Journal 30 September 1938. Courtesy of Courtesy of Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives
However, as the John O’ Groat Journal’s piece alludes to, there was much suspicion and indeed alarm at the local level. For, whilst Abel’s publicly stated objective was “to photograph and measure the physical characteristics of Gypsy Travellers” (Reid, 1975:3), Ina, and indeed others, quickly came to suspect that it was not only the Gypsy Traveller community that he was studying.
One morning on her way to school Ina was stopped by a Gypsy Traveller elder named Charlotte who having been closely observing Abel and his team had concluded that their visit to Caithness has more than one purpose. “Miss, they are spies. Will you tell the police? Nobody will listen to us and if we don’t cooperate they will charge us with poaching or frame us in another way” (Reid 1975:3). Charlotte went on to inform Ina that Abel and his team had hidden maps and papers inside the tyres of the motors and caravans and were constantly asking about the tides in the Firth and other matters. Ina passed on what Charlotte had told her to the authorities but they dismissed them as the rantings of a senile and shiftless woman. And so, before departing by sea to Norway, Abel was permitted to continue his racial studies and no investigation was made into his interest in the land and seas of Caithness, a region which according to official data was attacked six times, including the first recorded daylight bombing of Britain,[3] and had 222 high explosives dropped on it in World War Two. The Reich was clearly well informed on the topography of the region. Perhaps, as Ina notes, old Charlotte was right all along.
In the following interview myself and Eleanor further discuss Ina and Charlotte’s conclusions.
Concluding comments
We will never know if Wolfgang Abel’s racial studies were used as a cover for espionage. What we can say though is that given his close friendship with Albrecht Haushofer [a man long suspected of spying] and connections to ‘London Society’ it would not have been difficult for him to gain access to an area of interest with few questions being asked and any dissenting voices silenced. This combined with the fact that he travelled onward from Caithness by sea to Norway, a route that German bombers and U-boats would take during World War Two, suggests that some sort of topographic scoping exercise was undertaken prior to Britain entering into war with the Reich. With Abel and his team long gone and Reich records destroyed we cannot definitively state that Abel lived a double life of academic and spy – that said, I’m not a great believer in coincidences so my money would be on Charlottes conclusions, hat’s off to her for her keen eye and smart thinking!
Finally, I am indebted to Eleanor Leishman for sharing her aunt Ina’s writing with me and trusting me to re-tell and share it with a 21st century audience. Ina’s thoughts and words are an important part of Gypsy Traveller history and indeed Caithness History pre and during World War Two.
I’d also like to thank journalist David Scott for his excellent article and the team of researchers at the Nuclear and Caithness Archives who have gone above and beyond with their support for my research on Wolfgang Abel and Weydale school.
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[1] Weydale was, and remains, a scattered rural parish. Catering to children from surrounding farms, estate houses and crofts it also provided for the children of Gypsy Traveller families living in tents in the Weydale Quarry. This was Ina Baikie’s first permanent teaching post, she was in sole charge of up to 34 children aged from 5 -14 all of whom were taught together in one large room.
[2] Teaching in the Thirties in Reid, N. (1975), Quick Before the Memory Fades, Highland Printers Ltd, Inverness.
[3] The Bank Row bombing: “By the end of May 1940 defeat of Holland and Denmark and especially the occupation of Norway made it easier for German planes to get to Wick. Wick received more attention from German planes than any other town in the far north. The first bomb to fall in Wick was on July 1st, 1940, and was the most serious attack. the war was less than a year old and there had been little bombing of mainland Britain. It was at the end of the period called the phoney war, when people did not know much about bombing. The London Blitz was still to come. The bomb fell in Bank Row at the end of a summer afternoon.” Online at: https://www.caithness.org/history/bankrowbombing/bankrowbombing.htm
