The Morningside Mataharis

The Duchess of Atholl's supremely respectable fund raising coffee mornings and sales of work were part of Morningside life. A formidable group of matriarchs would meet once a week and swap recipes and gossip with their friends. At least that was what they said they were doing. In reality, the coffee mornings were a devilishly clever front for an intelligence network set up and funded by M16. Using new evidence, only recently released into the public domain, Douglas MacLeod traces the astonishing and untold story of a spy ring at the very centre of Scotland's high society. At the end of the Second World War, Kitty, Duchess of Atholl, and Mrs Elma Dangerfield set up the Scottish League for European Freedom, ostensibly as a response to the extensive refugee crisis in Eastern Europe. This society was merely a front for astonishing activities. Amongst the SLEF's members were right-wing activists like Dr John Stewart, Sir Thomas Moore and General John 'Boney' Fuller, men who used their eastern European connections for their own ends.


For the first time we have the story of almost 1000 Ukrainian refugees, brought to Scotland and trained and briefed in Haddington to act as double agents, creating the SS Galizien Division. Many of these Ukrainians were then sent to face unspeakable dangers in Russia. Douglas MacLeod delves beneath the surface of the Scottish League for European Freedom to reveal its more hair-raising activities as a front for M16. The book brings to life a cast of remarkable characters and includes interviews with members of the SLEF, their relatives and even with one of the original founders, Elma Dangerfield.