Bletchley Park

April 2021    Patricia Johnston’s idyllic childhood in Rangoon came to an abrupt end on the 7th of December 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbour. In early 1942 with the Japanese invasion getting ever closer she was flown out with her siblings and arrived in India, without her parents.      After settling her two brothers in boarding school Patricia’s war really began. She realised after completing her training that nursing wasn’t for her and transferred to the recently formed Women's Auxiliary Corps. Following a first posting in a Camouflage School and receiving a commission, her link to Bletchley Park began when she joined an SLU Unit as an Intelligence Officer.    Based at military command posts around the world Special Liaison Units received Ultra reports via secure links run by Special Communication Units. They then passed this intelligence directly on to the commanders in the field to ensure the Ultra secret was protected.   Oral History Volunteer Mike Chapman joins Pat to travel back 75 years to map o

April 2021    Bletchley Park’s latest temporary exhibition is called ‘Never Alone’ and asks ‘what happens when everything is connected?’ Based on an exhibition developed and designed by the National Science and Media Museum, ‘Never Alone’ explores the popularity and power of smart devices.   There are now more devices connected to the internet than people on the planet. ‘Smart’ gadgets are becoming part of our lives, making us safer, bringing people together and making everyday tasks easier. In the exhibition, we explore the issues behind these gadgets. We discover some wartime objects and stories that show how concerns about privacy and surveillance aren’t unique to the internet age. You are invited to think about the decisions you make when you click ‘OK’, and to consider what being connected means to you.   In this episode we meet two people who have loaned us objects for display, ethical hacker Ken Munro of Pen Test Partners and local museum professional Amy Doolan. We start by taking a tour of the exhibi

April 2021    Our Veterans who served in one of the three women’s auxiliary services during World War Two are always proud of their particular branch and WAAF Daphne Canning is no exception. When Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne interviewed her in 2017 she was still proud to have worn her ‘Sparks’ badge; the insignia of a Royal Air Force Wireless Operator.    These Oral History Specials allow us to bring you the complete recordings of interviews we have previously featured only as much shorter versions. In this episode, Daphne, who volunteered at 17½, tells us about becoming a Wireless Operator, then later a Morse Slip Reader and also how she survived a being hit by a V1 rocket.    This interview is really three for the price of one because Daphne also tells us the stories of her father and her husband. All three of them linked not just as family but as Wireless Operators helping the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park.   Image, courtesy of Mrs Daphne Canning.    #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory,

March 2021    In our last Oral History Special we brought you the first part of a 2017 interview with former WREN, Mary Sherrard. From 1942 until the end of the war, Mary served at Bletchley Park and then at the Eastcote Bombe Outstation. This helped shaped the rest of her life because it was at Eastcote where she met her future husband John.    After originally servicing Spitfires in 1940, an interview at the Foreign Office sent John to Eastcote and Stanmore to maintain Mary’s Bombe machines. By the time of his demob from the RAF in 1946, he had risen to the rank of Warrant Officer and married his “Scot’s girl”.    In this second part, Mary talks to Oral History Volunteer Mike Chapman about not only her time at GC&CS but also shares John’s story. We hear about the rest of the war and also their fascinatingly varied post-war lives.   These two episodes are tributes to both Mary (1923-2020) and John (1921-1999).   Image ©Bletchley Park Trust 2021   #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory,

March 2021  In March 1946, as an ‘Iron Curtain’ was descending across Europe, in post-war London a document was signed that to this day is the basis of the most important and longest intelligence relationship that the UK has. But that Special Relationship with the USA didn’t suddenly begin 75 years ago; it was the culmination of five years of wartime collaboration. In this episode Podcast Producer, Mark Cotton, and our Research Historian, Dr David Kenyon, go back to February 1941 and look at each of the milestones that led up to the signing of the UKUSA Agreement – five years that forged a Special Relationship. Special thanks to Steven Eric Wilson and Mr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents. Image ©Bletchley Park Trust 2021 #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #GCHQ,

February 2021    To keep you going during the lockdown, the podcast team will be bringing you a new episode every two weeks.   Last year we featured short clips from dozens of our Veterans telling us what they did on VE Day & VJ Day. Now in these Oral History Specials we can bring you the longer versions of those interviews, allowing our Veterans to tell their full story, in their own voices and in their own way.    Vital to us capturing these interview are a team of brilliant volunteers who visit our Veterans at home to record them. In this episode we join one of those Oral History Volunteers, Mike Chapman, who in 2017 travelled up to the Scottish Borders to interview Mary Sherrard. Mary recorded a fascinating and especially long interview with Mike which we are going to bring you in two parts.  In this first part Mary tells us about joining the Women’s Royal Naval Service and arriving at Bletchley Park in 1942.   Image ©Bletchley Park Trust 2021   #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory,

February 2021    As we did last year we have decided to release extra content again during the current lockdown and so for at least the next couple of months we will be bringing you a new show every two weeks. These will be a mixture of Oral History Specials and also our regular content as and when COVID restrictions allow us.    Last year we featured short clips from dozens of our Veterans telling us what they did on VE Day & VJ Day. Now in these Oral History Specials we can bring you the longer versions of those interviews, allowing our Veterans to tell their full story, in their own voices and in their own way.    In early 2020, in what would become one the last interviews carried out just weeks before the pandemic, our Oral History Officer, Jonathan Byrne and his colleague Will Hankey sat down with GC&CS Veteran Tim Edwards. Previously we heard what Tim got up to on the day the war ended in Europe and now we can bring you much more of that interview. Tim’s reminisces about how the discovery of an

January 2021    As we release this episode Bletchley Park Museum is currently closed as the UK is in a national lockdown to help contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19). Our staff and volunteers like so many around the world are in lockdown, self-isolation or working remotely from home. Unfortunately it means the promised second part of our Q&A’s from our listeners is on-hold for now, but once we are safe to do so we will bring you that show.   As we did last year during the first lockdown we will endeavour to continue to bring you new episodes of the podcast. With that in mind we thought back to our VE & VJ Day episodes from last year which included very short clips from dozens of our more than 500 Oral History recordings. So until we can resume our ‘normal service’ it seems the perfect time to shine a light on our Veterans by bringing you the full versions of some of those interviews, in these Oral History Specials.   For the first of these special shows we have selected Sheila Wilson who came

December 2020    At the end of each year we like to focus on the important work that our Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne and his team of staff and volunteers carry out. As with so many around the world, COVID-19 has had a huge effect on the work of Jonathan’s team in 2020.   In this episode we catch-up with Jonathan for an update on the Oral History Project and he shares four more highlights from our archive of 550 interviews.   Gwen Adsley was a civilian working in the Communications Section from 1942. Food, or the lack of it, is an abiding memory for her so being able to get an unexpected loaf of bread was a real pleasure.    Trixie Davison wanted to do her bit after the Blitz on London and become a Radar Operator so left her Civil Service job and joined the ATS. A problem with her eyesight meant she was transferred to work at Kedleston Hall and Forest Moor Y stations as an intercept operator.   Roy Maycock was 6 years old on the day that war was declared and living in what was then the village of Bletc

November 2020  For the first time since January 2020 the podcast team were able to be physically in the same room together, even if socially distanced. So to mark this return we decided to ask our listeners on social media for their questions about Bletchley Park.  In this, the first of these shows, Exhibitions Manager Erica Munro, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon, Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham and podcast producer Mark Cotton, will hopefully answer those questions and maybe do a bit of myth busting along the way. Many thanks to our listeners and followers for setting us these challenges. Special thanks, as always, go to Mr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents. Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2020 #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,

October 2020    For over 8 years the podcast has been privileged to receive help and support from the modern day version of the wartime Government Code and Cypher School, GCHQ, both as an organisation and from their Departmental Historian.    Previous listeners will know that GCHQ has a new Historian and in Podcast Episode 98, we had the honour of being able to exclusively reveal his identity when we met him at the GCHQ Centenary celebrations at the National Memorial Arboretum in November 2019.    We promised then that we’d catch up with him again, and this month we’re doing just that. Podcast producer Mark Cotton sat down with Dr David Abrutat, the recently avowed Departmental Historian at GCHQ, to find out about his life, his service and what he has planned for his “dream job”.    Image: ©GCHQ   #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #GCHQ,

September 2020    This is the last of three special episodes to mark what would have been our Annual Veterans Reunion.    It was due to COVID-19 restrictions and with huge regret that Bletchley Park Trust had to take the difficult decision not to hold this year’s reunion on-site. But here at the podcast we can still celebrate our Veterans with these special episodes.   At a reunion we like to capture as many Veterans stories as we can, but we also always remember that it is their special day and we try not to interrupt it too much for them. Some chats may just be a quick hello and how are you and some might end up with a short interview. But for some Veterans, it might be the first time they have been asked to talk about their vital war work and we are always honoured to be on hand to save their story for future generations.    In this, the last of these special episodes, we’re bringing you nearly 80 minutes from another 12 of our amazing Veterans, including a few of those longer interviews.   Featured in thi

September 2020    As we explained in the last show, due to COVID-19 restrictions and with huge regret, Bletchley Park Trust had to take the difficult decision not to host our Annual Veterans Reunion onsite this year.   To continue to mark what would have been this year’s reunion, this is the second of three special episodes we will be bringing you this month, to still pay tribute to our Veterans.   Reunion is always the busiest day of the year for the podcast, catching up with old friends & rushing around trying to make sure that we can record as many Veterans as we can but it hasn’t just been our original co-host Katherine Lynch and producer Mark Cotton. We have also had help from a group of people we like to call our roving reporters. They are friends of the podcast who kindly give their time to help us allow the Veterans’, to tell their stories, in their own voices.    We want to thank everyone who has helped us at each reunion since 2012 but especially those featured in this episode, Sarah Langston, K

September 2020  Each year, to mark the arrival of the Codebreakers to their war station in 1939, we hold our Veterans Reunion.  This is the highlight of our calendar year, and a really special occasion for all involved. Veterans can meet up with friends old and new and share stories of their vital and once top-secret wartime work. These events have taken on even more meaning in the past few years, for the Veterans, their families, and all those who work for Bletchley Park Trust today. It is with huge regret that, due to COVID-19 restrictions, Bletchley Park Trust has taken the difficult decision not to host our Reunion onsite this year. To mark what would have been this year’s reunion, this is the first of three special episodes we will be bringing you this month, not just the highlights of the last 8 years that the Podcast has attended but also from the very first Reunion in 1991, the one that started the campaign to Save Bletchley Park. The Veterans featured in this episode, in order of appearance are:

August 2020 Nearly 3 months after VE Day, the war against Japan still continued. Its end would be drawn out over 6 weeks between the Potsdam Declaration in July and the final signing of the surrender on-board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September the 2nd.  During those weeks the world saw the use of a new weapon, the atom bomb and both Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be totally destroyed before World War Two would finally come to an end. To commemorate VJ Day we present this special It Happened Here episode. Using archive recordings, a recreation of the memoir of Eric Norris and interviews with our Veterans from both our official Oral History Project and 8 years of podcasts, we hope to take you back to those momentous weeks in 1945. 10 of our Veterans will share their memories, both happy and sometimes poignant, of the beginning of the Atomic Age, the end of the war, VJ Day and looking forward to the rest of their lives. Featured in order of appearance are: Sheila Willson Dennis Gilley Dr Michael Loewe

July 2020    As COVID-19 struck we decided to start releasing these extra episodes to give you our listeners something extra each week while you were in lockdown. We are glad we could share so many previously unheard recordings that we just hadn’t been able to before and hopefully these shows have helped you through these extraordinary times, if even in a small way.    Over the next few episodes we shall start to return to our more normal podcast episodes and eventually our It Happen Here shows too.   It seems only fitting that as our last Intelligence Insight we look at how Bletchley Park has managed to finally reopen to the public. It’s been a long journey, which is still not over, but who better to hear from than some of our paid and volunteer staff who have made it happen.   Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2020   #BPark, #WW2, #BletchleyPark, #Enigma,

July 2020    Bletchley Park is an independent charity and so we rely on the ticket sales of our visitors for 95% of our operating costs, but another way to support the museum is to become a Friend of Bletchley Park.    As a friend of Bletchley Park you not only get our normal free unlimited year-round access to our heritage site and museum, but a range of other benefits including exclusive events, previews and discounts … all while knowing you are helping us to keep telling the story of the vital war winning work carried out by the men and women of The Government Code and Cypher School during WW2.   So in this episode we take you back to early 2018 and to one of those exclusive Friends talks from our very own Research Historian Dr David Kenyon. The Y Service was the organisation responsible for intercepting enemy wireless and radio communications with Y Stations based around the world. In his talk David focused on a smaller part of this organisation, the Coastal Y Service.    In the Q&A that follows his t

July 2020    In this episode we are staying with Dermot Turing & his wider family. First we go back to a very cold day in March 2015 when more than twenty members of Alan Turing’s family gathered at Bletchley Park to pay tribute to their famous ancestor. The Imitation Game had been released only a few months earlier, so to have so many Turing’s in one place, at the same time, meant the worlds press turned up too & so the perfect opportunity for Dermot to launch the fundraising campaign for the restoration of Hut 11a.    Then we will return to Hut 11a exactly 3 years later & the official opening of The Bombe Breakthrough. In the very building that housed the Bombe Machines during World War Two the exhibition tells the entire story for the first time. From the earliest work by Polish Codebreakers using mathematics & machines, through Alan Turing & Gordon Welchman’s famous invention, to finally producing war winning intelligence for the Allies. You will hear from the people involved with crea

June 2020    This week we return for the second and final time to the 2018 launch of Dermot Turing’s book, X, Y and Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken. It’s a story of international cooperation, spanning many years and for the first time tells of how the French, British and Polish secret services came together to unravel the secrets of the Enigma machine.   At the launch Dermot was joined by Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac, the Curator of Heritage for the French Ministry of the Armed Forces and GCHQ Historian Tony Comer. To finish this episode we have highlights from the Q&A Session that all three joined, which ended the day.   But first we return to Dermot’s talk. In the last episode we left the Polish Codebreakers, enjoying life, living in a Chateau, working for the French. He now completes the story of what happened to them following the Allied landings in North Africa in late 1942 as the Germans rushed to occupy Vichy France.   Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2020   * Producers Note * While we are still

June 2020    The breaking of the German Enigma machine wasn’t just down to the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park and it didn’t start with the outbreak of World War Two. It’s a story of international cooperation, spanning many years and who better to tell it than the nephew of Alan Turing.    In this, the first of two episodes, we return to 2018 when Bletchley Park hosted representatives of the Polish Embassy in London and families of Polish codebreakers, for the launch of Dermot Turing’s book, X, Y and Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken.   Based on his own original research and newly released documents, both in the book and this exclusively recorded talk, Dermot tells the story of how the French, British and Polish secret services came together to unravel the secrets of the Enigma machine.    He is introduced by His Excellency the Ambassador of Republic of Poland, Dr Arkady Rzegocki.   Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2020   #BPark, #WW2, #BletchleyPark, #Enigma, @PolishEmbassyUK