Lectures on the formalities of basic Russian grammar were followed by practical small-group tutorials which made frequent use of timed dictation exercises (диктовка).
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.
[8] Other teaching materials included comprehensive vocabulary lists, a reading primer called Ordinary People, and a textbook by Pears and Wissotsky's titled Passages for Translation.
[10] 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.
Notable alumni of the school include former Governor of the Bank of England Eddie George, playwright and novelist Michael Frayn,[11] actor and writer Alan Bennett,[12] dramatist Dennis Potter,[13] and former director of the Royal National Theatre Sir Peter Hall.
Ronald Hingley, who ran the London branch of the JSSL, went on to a successful career at the University of Oxford and became an authority on Anton Chekhov.
[20] Even so, in the late 1950s, the SIS was so 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 overreaction, he was charged and convicted under the Official Secrets Act and, as a result, spent time in prison.