Links to a Nazi spy
in February 1937, Jessie was approached by the German Abwher secret police and invited to verify some information for them.
Jessie later said that she bore no ill-will to Britain or had become pro-German. She wanted to oblige German friends and because it would afford some excitement.
Arriving back in Perth, Jessie helped her step-brother William who had recently lost his wife.
William stayed at Breadalbane Terrace, Friarton and it was from here that Jessie would start her new career.
Jessie’s first espionage mission was to make drawings of the Royal Armament Depot at Rosyth dockyard.
Taking her nephew along with her, they took the train to Dunfermline and then a bus to Charlestown.
Finding a suitable spot overlooking the dockyard, Jessie started drawing. But Jessie’s drawing skills were not very good and of little use to her handlers.
From Perth, Jessie also went off on a mission down south to visit the docks at Southampton.
Ken Bruce researched Jessie’s life after seeing this envelope with a Perth address (left). Jessie later moved to Dundee (above) where she opened a hair salon
She left her nephew with an aunt in North Wales and carried on alone.
On the way back, she wandered unchallenged around the Aldershot Barracks taking pictures with a camera.
Perth she felt was too far away from the places she wanted to report on and she decided to leave the Fair City and open a hairdressing shop at 1 Kinloch Street, Dundee.
She carried on with taking her nieces and nephews on seaside excursions, recording all the defence installations from Berwick to Montrose.
The Abwher decided that she would have another role, that of intermediary for correspondence between their agents in the US and Germany.
The British Secret Service had by now become suspicious and were monitoring her mail.
One letter she received was about a US spy ring and MI5 forwarded the information to the FBI.
As a result, a plot to steal a defence map of the US east coast was averted and many German spies were arrested.
Hollywood made a movie about this event in 1939 staring Edward G Robinson, ‘The Confessions of a Nazi Spy’.
The opening scene is of a Scottish town with the postie delivering mail to a Mrs McLaughlin (aka Jessie Jordan) in Cathcart Road, Argyll, Scotland.
Jessie was arrested and spent time awaiting trial in Perth Prison and Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison.
One last tragedy for Jessie was the loss of her daughter in 1938, perhaps in a German hospital or perhaps while imprisoned.
Jessie was found guilty of espionage, sentenced to four years’ penal servitude, but her good behaviour led to her being released early in 1941.
Her freedom would not last long though and she was immediately arrested again and interned as an enemy alien.
She remained interned throughout the war before returning to Germany when hostilities ceased.
Jessie died in Hamburg in 1954.