Bletchley Park

May 2015

First this month we talk to our official photographer Shaun Armstrong who’s pictures help to tell the story of our new exhibition; Bletchley Park Rescued and Restored. Shaun was on hand to capture images from the start of the £8 million phase one restoration project, right through to the official opening in June 2014 by HRH The Duchess of Cambridge.

Sarah Harding, director of the 2nd series of The Bletchley Circle was one of last years speakers in our Bletchley Park Presents series of talks. After her sold-out talk Sarah and her sister Gillian sat down to tell us about more discoveries of their mum’s Bletchley Park past.

Over nearly 3 years of the podcast we have had the honour to interview around 40 of our amazing Veteran’s so far. These interviews, along with the Official Oral Archive, are building an invaluable resource of first-hand history, for not just the listeners of the podcast but for future generations to come. It is 70 years since Victory in Europe and to pay tribute to all the men and women who served we bring you the sounds of VE Day and from our own archive, the memories of our Veterans, not only remembering May 1945 but what they did next. For our Veterans their service didn’t end in 1945, as for 30 years and more in many cases, they kept the secret of their vital war work hidden from the world.

The Veteran’s featured, in order of appearance are:

Betty Flavell (WRNS 1944-1945)

Many thanks to The Three Belles for the use of their music. For more information go to http://thethreebelles.com

Picture: Betty Webb & Marigold Freeman-Attwood ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #VEDay70, #Enigma, #WW2Veteran, #History

May 2015

70 years ago on May the 7th 1945

In this clip we bring you some of the

This clip includes,

Betty Flavell

Joyce Roberts

Dot Tuffin

Marigold Freeman-Attwood

Picture: Staff of Huts 3 and 6 on

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #VEDay70,

April 2015

This month we take you into our new Hut 12 Exhibit; Rescued and Restored, showcasing historical treasures found during the transformation of the Huts and Blocks. When conservation specialists were brought in to rescue fragile, derelict buildings as part of the much needed first phase of restoration, little could they know what they might find. In the cracks between roof beams in Hut 6 they discovered folded pieces of what appear to be scrap paper, with mysterious notes scribbled on them. Among them were the only known examples of used Banbury Sheets ever found. The system invented by Alan Turing was used to help deduce the daily Enigma settings, before the process was mechanised by the development of the Turing Welchman Bombe.

Maths comes to life at Bletchley Park and that’s why the 2015 Milton Keynes Maths Challenge final was held there. Students from secondary schools pitted their wits against each other in a series of timed challenges. At the sound of an air raid siren, the groups dashed from one puzzle to the next, winning prizes including chocolate eggs, scientific calculators and shopping vouchers. The podcast takes you inside the minds of the competitors with members of Bletchley Park’s Education team.

Pat Davies joined the Wrens in 1942 at the age of 19, in a bid to avoid being sent to join a ‘crowd of jolly girls’ from the Foreign Office at a place in Buckinghamshire called Bletchley Park, where her mother thought she should go. Pat wanted to go to sea, but it wasn’t to be as she was given the task of intercepting naval messages from a key vantage point on the south coast. Pat stopped for a chat with the Bletchley Park Podcast in the Block C cafe when she brought some old friends for a visit. Pat talk’s about her wartime service and her post war career working as a television producer.

Picture: ©Bletchley Park Trust

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #AlanTuring, #Enigma, #WW2Veteran, #History

March 2015

This month join us on a very special tour of Bletchley Park, when more than twenty members of Alan Turing’s family gathered to pay tribute to his contribution to the war-winning intelligence that emerged from this unassuming country estate. It was a poignant visit for members of his family, some of whom had never been before and most who’d never met the man. Sir John Dermot Turing, a Trustee of Bletchley Park and Alan Turing’s nephew, took the opportunity to talk about exciting plans to tell the story of his uncle’s co-invention, in the newly restored Hut 11A.

Find out what year six pupils from Greenleys Junior School in Milton Keynes thought of their free school trip to Bletchley Park, when they became the first school to take advantage of a pilot bursary scheme, funded by Winton Global Investment Management.

Graham Moore has become a member of Hollywood’s most exclusive club, an Oscar winner. Graham won the little gold statue for his script for The Imitation Game, adapted from Andrew Hodges’ biography of Alan Turing. Dermot Turing gives us his reaction to the news and we have edited our previous interviews with Graham for this episode. We send him our congratulations and thanks.

Finally this month we bring you a very poignant interview with another of our wonderful Veterans. Bombe Wren Joan Martin was one of a number of women who joined the Navy only to find they were on dry land and operating state-of-the-art machines that helped speed up the codebreaking process. Joan talks about her days working at the outstation, Eastcote, where she worked with her life-long friend Joyce Rogers.

Picture: ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #AlanTuring,

March 2014

In this EXTRA’s episode we bring you highlights of bestselling author, journalist and TV presenter Ben Macintyre’s talk on his book ‘A Spy Among Friends, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal’.

Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War.

It is followed by the interview we recorded with Ben after his talk, that regular listeners will have heard in this month’s normal podcast, but we have added it here again for completion.

This talk was given in our Bletchley Park Presents series last year. Our 2015 season of talks is about to begin, starting with Michael Smith in March and already confirmed for later in the year are Victor Madeira, Jerry White, Taylor Downing & Sinclair McKay with more names yet to be announced.

For more information on these talks please go to www.bletchleypark.org and look in the What’s On section.

Picture of Ben Macintyre courtesy Jonathan Ring. Cover Image courtesy of Bloomsbury Publishing.

#BletchleyPark, #BPark, #Spy,

February 2015

Bursaries for disadvantaged schools have

Winton Global Investment Management is

Bletchley Park welcomes more than 9,000

The first school to participate in the scheme

Victoria Worpole, the Bletchley Park Trust’s

The scheme forms part of a greatly improved

Picture: ©ShaunArmstrong/mubsta.com

#Bletchleypark, #Enigma, #BPARK, #STEM