December 2018

In this second of our two episodes this month we bring you two more interviews from our Oral History Archive.

Our Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne and his team have collected over 450 interviews in the last 7 years with our Veterans’. Now with the support of Milton Keynes Council the project is being extended to include local people with connections to the wartime Bletchley Park.

Judith Wainer couldn’t have been a closer neighbour to Station X as she lived on Wilton Avenue. Her family had senior GC&CS staff billeted on them but she never got to see what was inside the fence that was literally at the end of her road. In this interview she is joined by her childhood friend Jean Cheshire who grew up with her family during WW2 living in Cottage 2 within that very fence, as her father Robert was Chief Groundsman, Quartermaster, driver and Head of the Refreshment Hut.

Jimmy Thirsk joined the Intelligence Corps in April 1942, first serving at Beaumanor before coming to the Home of The Codebreakers later that year. Even at the age of 100, when this interview was recorded, his detailed recall of the vitally important Traffic Analysis work he did in the SIXTA Group is astonishing.

In memoriam, James “Jimmy” Thirsk (1914-2018)

Image of Jimmy Thirsk: ©Jimmy Thirsk

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory