E82 - Bletchley Park & Beyond Part 1

December 2018

In the first of two episodes this month we bring you three interviews of Veterans and local people from our Oral History Archive.

Our Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne and his team have collected over 450 interviews in the last 7 years. He tells us about a new project, being run with the support of Milton Keynes Council, to extend our archive to include local people with connections to the wartime Bletchley Park.

At the outbreak of World War 2 Val Pinker was a teenager living in Wolverton Park House. She recalls her mother’s horror at the thought of having evacuees and instead had 4 members of staff from GC&CS billeted on her for the rest of the war.

Gwendoline Herbert was not only a local but after an interview with her headmistress, started work as a civilian in the Transport Section at the home of the code breakers.

Betty Lawrie’s memories of her time working for The Foreign Office at Bletchley Park are as clear as day, including her part in getting a grandmother of a future Royal pickled.

Image courtesy of Mrs Betty Lawrie.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory