# Bletchley Park



## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

Wonder if anyone around who worked or trained at Bletchley Park in the early fifties?

Chas


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

It is WELL worth a visit, BUT, BUT make sure you go to the old radio building, run by the ex MI6 operator/tech.

Fan-bloody-tastic!


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

I know a famous quizmaster who may or may not have spent some time there but ..... my lips are sealed.

John T (not my real name).


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

I knew somebody who worked there during the war but she died ten years ago!
She was the daughter of Dr James Johnston Abraham, author of the "Surgeon's Log." 
Guess what! She never told me one little dicky bird, except that on going home in a crowded train in early June 1944 she thought to herself, "I'm the only person in this train who knows when D.Day is."


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## A.D.FROST (Sep 1, 2008)

Its ironic after the great work done at Bletchley Park probabley shortening the war,just recently a pigeon (dead)was retrived from a chimney with a message tube still attached to its leg,but no one to date can decipher it?


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## sparkie2182 (May 12, 2007)

"I know a famous quizmaster"

Bamber Gascoigne?

Ho ho ho


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## sparkie2182 (May 12, 2007)

Ref the Turing petition...........signed.


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

E-petition duly signed.

Why do you ask the question Charles Henry?

(Thumb)


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## Binnacle (Jul 22, 2005)

R651400 said:


> The post-war recognition of Alan Turing is nothing short of a national disgrace.


Yes indeed, also the bricklayer's son who designed Colossus. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers


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## Hugh Ferguson (Sep 4, 2006)

There's a book:- Station X : The Code Breakers of Bletchley Park. Author, Michael Smith ISBN 0 7522 2189 2 : Published 1998.

Bumph Palace

I think that I shall never see
A sight so curious as BP.
This place called up at war's behest,
And peopled by the strangely dressed;
Yet what they do they cannot say,
Nor ever will 'til Judgement Day.

For six long years we have been there,
Subject to local scorn and stare.
We came by transport and by train,
The dull and brilliantly insane,
What shall we do, where shall we be,
When God at last redunds BP?

The Air Force types that never fly
Soldiers that never do nor die,
Landlubber Navy, beards complete
Civilians slim, long-haired effete;
Yet what they did they never knew,
And if they told it wasn't true.

If I should die think only this of me...
I served my country at BP.
And should my son ask: 'What did you
In the Atomic World War Two?'
God only knows and he won't tell
For after all BP was hell.

ANON.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

sparkie2182 said:


> "I know a famous quizmaster"
> 
> Bamber Gascoigne?
> 
> Ho ho ho


A Cambridge man who didn't defect! He had his "finger on the buzzer". Dit dit dit dah dit dah.

John T


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

A.D.FROST said:


> Its ironic after the great work done at Bletchley Park probabley shortening the war,just recently a pigeon (dead)was retrived from a chimney with a message tube still attached to its leg,but no one to date can decipher it?


The message begins: "Listen to me carefully, I shall say this only once..."

Many pigeons were awarded the Dickin Medal for bravery during WW2. Maybe the message says: "I'm stuck in this dickin chimney, where's my Dickin Medal?"

Signed the petition. The tenner will come in handy.

John T


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

The style of Code found on the expired Pigeon is a standard 5 letter Military type which is most probably still in use today if being Coded manually, however, each Government Department had/has their own version of a Code between Originator and Addressee. Usually the Wartime Code book's were destroyed.


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

Moulder said:


> E-petition duly signed.
> 
> Why do you ask the question Charles Henry?
> 
> (Thumb)


Because I worked there in the early fifties. A miserable place, the nearest pub was in Fenny Stratford (A walk of several miles there and then back). The job and living conditions were in my opinion dreadfull and the security nonsensical. Furthermore I was due to be transferred to Brora (As far north in Scotland as you can go) so I quit.

Smartest thing I ever did in my life
Chas (Pint)(Pint)


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## 5036 (Jan 23, 2006)

There was a cracking BBC2 do***entary about Blethcley's other unsung and badly treated by history's other heroes Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers in "Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park's Lost Heroes". These guys wre very shabbily treated.


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

charles henry said:


> Because I worked there in the early fifties. A miserable place, the nearest pub was in Fenny Stratford (A walk of several miles there and then back). The job and living conditions were in my opinion dreadfull and the security nonsensical. Furthermore I was due to be transferred to Brora (As far north in Scotland as you can go) so I quit.
> 
> Smartest thing I ever did in my life
> Chas (Pint)(Pint)


Thats too far to go for a bev - I assume the Bletchley Park Club was not up and running at the time then? (*))


(Thumb)


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## 5036 (Jan 23, 2006)

The story of Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers is on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF48sl15OCg&feature=related

Enjoy!


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

I often wonder about the other people in places like Bletchley Park. Not the brainy ones, but the ordinary people who fed and watered them. The people who made their tea, cooked their meals, mowed the lawns and perhaps made their beds. Never mentioned, but they must have helped a lot, by just catering for the brainy ones needs, and allowing them to concentrate on the job in hand. 
There were of course an army of telephonists, plotters, radio operators and so on who gathered and collated information. These do sometimes get a mention but usually more because of what they saw rather than what they actually did.


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## R719220 (Oct 5, 2011)

Moulder said:


> I assume the Bletchley Park Club was not up and running at the time then? (*))
> (Thumb)


Run, in my time, by the formidable (but extremely pleasant and efficient) Mrs Reece and her spinster sister (iirc). Highlight of the week was the Thursday night dance which was known by the more gentile amongst us as "Grab a Granny Night" or, by the more plebeian and unkind, as the "*****s Ball".......(*))


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## hawkey01 (Mar 15, 2006)

R719220,

Ah! I remember those Thursday night shindings. You have a better memory for names but Mrs Reece seems to ring a bell. Also another formidable lady was in charge of the DWS accommodation blocks. Spent a time in them before moving into town or was this the same person?

Hawkey01


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## R719220 (Oct 5, 2011)

hawkey01 said:


> R719220,
> 
> Also another formidable lady was in charge of the DWS accommodation blocks.
> 
> Hawkey01


That would have been the redoubtable Mrs Dimmock who kept home to a number of extremely smelly cats. Well, probably not the cats themselves, but Dimmy's quarters stank to high heaven of cat pee whenever she opened the door. Not a woman to be messed with!!(@)


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

No one has mentioned the female teachers training college which was adjacent to the "parks" ground. The rumour was that they were all virgins and were checked out by a doctor each week.......

To me the worst memory was the bath house, six or eight large baths standing in a row in the cold and drafty building.

Chas


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## R719220 (Oct 5, 2011)

charles henry said:


> The rumour was that they were all virgins .......
> 
> Chas


Could well be true Chas! My wife had a cousin there who I always imagined as wearing armoured knickers. Fifty-odd years on I'll swear she is still a virgin despite having been married for many years.


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

The Grab a Granny Nights were still going strong in the early 80s and the baths had been changed to shower cubicles by then.

(Thumb)


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

Can't help with the 50s but was billeted in Hut 3 (Diplomatic Wireless Service staff hostel) in 1967/8. Bulk of the place was given over to the GPO Home Counties Regional Training Centre at that time.

Roger


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Searcher2004 said:


> Can't help with the 50s but was billeted in Hut 3 (Diplomatic Wireless Service staff hostel) in 1967/8. Bulk of the place was given over to the GPO Home Counties Regional Training Centre at that time.
> 
> Roger


Were you working on DTN?


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## Searcher2004 (May 3, 2012)

chadburn said:


> Were you working on DTN?


I was a radio tech at the transmitter site at Creslow (Central Transmitting Station or CTS).


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

Thanks for your reply Searcher(Thumb)


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## sparkslw (Jan 9, 2011)

Best digs in Bletchley was Ma Hammond's. Doris did all the hard work feeding up to 22 mouths per day in busy week. The CAA lads stayed there and I paid the place many visits for 20 years. Yes, I recall Mrs. Rees and the G a G nights!


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