Tom Clarke
Tom Clarke, the minutes secretary of Dundee trades council, was one of the Dundee contingent in the International Brigade. He was one of those who survived and returned. He will have surely – as all Brigaders, especially the Scots did – distinguished himself in the field but Tom is remembered fondly in the spirit of dry workers’ wit, as being the Dundonian Brigader who, on the ferry crossing the Channel, had smoked one of the fags in a packet he had been given as a sort of verification tool to give to the contact he had been told to meet in Paris.
When he handed over the packet, his contact discovered that none of the cigarettes contained a verifying message written on the inside of the cigarette paper. Tom had smoked the very one containing a secret message regarding himself!
Source: Malcolm Burns Morning Star October 14th 2008; Tom Clarke was photographed in 1986 by Sean Hudson in a series he named ‘Voices From Spain’. https://549.scot/tom-clarkes-secret-message-mix-up/
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