Joint Services School for Linguists The Joint Services School for Linguists ( JSSL ) was founded in 1951 by the British armed services to provide language training , principally in Russian , and largely to selected conscripts undergoing National Service . The school closed with the ending of conscription in 1960 , after which the services made their own provisions as they had prior to the opening of the school ( and , to some extent , even during its operation ) . The founding of the school was prompted by the need to provide greater numbers of interpreters , intelligence and signals intelligence officers due to the Cold War , and the Korean War which had started the previous year . Origins . Training in Russian had been conducted by British forces long before JSSL , such as an intensive course for regular Army officers run at King ' s College London and SSEES , followed by a four - month stay with emigre families resident in Paris or a Baltic State . and an ' Inter - Services Russian Course ' between 1945 - 46 . However , these efforts were mostly small - scale and largely not co - ordinated , with their organisation being described as a ' mosaic ' . Training and Accommodation Locations . What has been described as ' the first building block in the JSSL structure ' , was a school for Russian linguists in Kidbrooke , southeast London , which opened in 1949 . The establishments which operated under the official JSSL name operated from a large number of different sites during its history . This was partly because the course had two distinct elements ; an initial ' linguists ' course , and a subsequent , and more advanced , ' University ' element to produce interpreters . Two of the school ' s ' linguist ' sites , in Walker Lines , Bodmin , Cornwall , and Coulsdon , near Croydon , opened in September 1951 . The Coulsdon site closed in 1954 , and Bodmin in 1956 . These sites were replaced by a single unit at a former airfield near the fishing village of Crail on the east coast of Scotland . Interpreter students were initially housed at RAF Waterbeach and RAF Oakington . Student accommodation subsequently moved to Newmarket , near Cambridge , and from where students were bussed daily into Cambridge while they studied at the University . Subsequently , a former maternity home in Cambridge , as well as an eighteenth - century house , were leased for student accommodation in Cambridge itself . Finally , Foxton Hall , a ' featureless Victorian Pile ' 12 miles south of the City , was leased ( as the ' Officer Cadet ' s Mess ' ) until the Cambridge programme ended . Whereas linguists were accommodated at the same military sites on which they were trained , University - taught ' interpreter ' students were not . Those interpreter students studying in London were accommodated variously in properties in Sussex Square and Queensgate Terrace . The latter property was renamed as the ' stone frigate ' HMS President . For a time in the early 1960s the school ( renamed the Joint Services School for Linguists ) was based at RAF Tangmere near Chichester in Sussex , where Mandarin , Polish and Czech in addition to Russian were taught . Training System . The JSSL system was rigorous . It pioneered the application of ' intensive ' language training techniques which involved eight hours a day , five days a week staff - student contact , with regular after - hours ' homework ' . Lectures on the formalities of basic Russian grammar were followed by practical small - group ' tutorials ' which made frequent use of timed dictation exercises ( диктовка ) . The later courses also pioneered the use of tape - recorders . A special ' JSSL Training Manual ' was compiled and systematically employed in classes . In addition , lengthy vocabulary lists were issued and tough weekly tests set . Two consecutive fails could mean expulsion from the course . However , fails were surprisingly uncommon , perhaps because failed students were immediately posted to less desirable duties and locations . Teaching Staff . Russian tutors tended to be a mixture of White Russian émigrés and carefully vetted Soviet defector s . Among them were some odd and colourful figures , including an aged wooden - legged ' colonel of cavalry ' who claimed to have lost his leg while fighting against the Reds in the Russian Civil war . Another , a mysterious ' Countess ' , always dressed from head to toe in black , ' in permanent mourning ' for the tsar and his family . One set of statistics from Bodmin listed the teaching staff as comprising : Probably the most important member of the teaching staff was Professor ( later Dame ) Elizabeth Hill , who was director of the JSSL through its working life . Syllabus & Training Tools . One major teaching tool was ' Anna H Semeonoff Grammar ' textbook , informally known as ' The Semyonova ' . Other teaching materials included comprehensive vocabulary lists , a reading primer called ' Ordinary People ' , and a textbook by Pears and Wissotsky ' s ' Passages for Translation ' . Literature published in Russian , such as Crime And Punishment was also used . Assessment Systems . The attraction of avoiding normal military training and threat of being " returned to unit " if the weekly test was failed tended to make for attentive students . Students who successfully completed the JSSL course had the option of taking the GCE examination in Russian at ' A ' level . Many did so . Alumni and Legacy . Aside from their military contribution , many of the estimated 6 , 000 trainees continued to use their skills in their subsequent civilian life in translation , business , education and cultural life . Notable alumni of the school include former Governor of the Bank of England Eddie George , playwright and novelist Michael Frayn , actor and writer Alan Bennett , dramatist Dennis Potter , and former director of the Royal National Theatre Sir Peter Hall . The Soviet spy Geoffrey Prime was also a graduate of JSSL at Crail . The industrialist John Harvey - Jones graduated from an early version of the JSSL course in 1945 , during the period it was run from Cambridge . Another alumnus , D M Thomas , has argued that as well as the school ' s stated aim of producing linguists for a military purpose , it also ' created a generation of young and influential Britons who had generous , respectful and affectionate feelings for Russia - the eternal Russia of Tolstoy , Pushkin and Pasternak ' . Extent of interest in the JSSL by the Warsaw Pact . For various reasons , the JSSL attracted significant interest from Soviet intelligence , and at one time the British traitor Guy Burgess was tasked with obtaining information on it . One reason for this interest was the correct belief that many of the JSSL students would eventually work in obtaining and processing Soviet SIGINT . The Soviets also ( incorrectly ) believed that the school ' s students included a number of Secret Intelligence Service ( SIS ) Officers . Further , the Soviets would have noted the links between Professor ( Later Dame ) Elizabeth ' Liza ' Hill , one of the senior academic staff , and a General Miller , a former Tsarist general . There is , however , no evidence that the School as an organisation , or any of its students , were ever successfully penetrated by Soviet intelligence . Even so , in the late 1950s , the SIS was sufficiently sensitive about security at the JSSL that they pursued a young Royal Navy cadet who , in a published article , had publicly revealed some minor inside information about the work done there : in what was seen by many at the time as a gross over - reaction , he was charged and convicted under the Official Secrets Act and , as a result , spent time in prison . Subsequently , security files were opened on everyone , staff and students , who had passed through a JSSL course .