A web log, an æthereal scrap-book if you will, with a somewhat vintage flavour. News items, occurrences, experiences, thoughts and opinions related to Victoriana through to Fifties Americana can all be found here.
As the period of the Second World War slips further back into the mists of time, so remarkable discoveries like this never-before seen footage of intelligence workers at a Bletchley Park satellite station are both ever more historically important and perhaps (hopefully?) the start of more of the same appearing, as the period of the Official Secrets Act that covered the work done at Bletchley comes closer to its end. It is perhaps telling that this fantastic material was donated anonymously, which to my mind suggests that it was the original owner (or someone closely connected to them), who magnanimously gave it to the Bletchley Park Trust - perhaps feeling that enough time had passed that it could be handed on with a clear conscience.
That it was made at all is extraordinary given the top-secret nature of the work carried out at the site, the blanket ban on cameras and the oath of secrecy that all the workers were sworn to and which, if you see or read interviews with surviving members, they still feel honour-bound to keep nearly 80 years on.
In spite of this it seems to me that whoever took this footage clearly wanted to document what little they could of life as a code-breaker during the war. Although much of it is of a frivolous nature and nothing is really given away, the fact that it features several fellow workers including some in official uniform to me belies the suggestion that it would have been seriously frowned upon had it been discovered at the time. In it I see a group of people, very much aware of the importance of what they are doing, wanting to preserve what they could of their daily lives at Whaddon Hall for posterity. The fact that expensive and hard to come by colour film is used in parts, I feel, supports this theory.
As I said at the beginning of this post, it is to be hoped that more finds like this will be unearthed in the future to provide an even more tangible link to a significant and pivotal time in our history and in this case add further to the amazing story of the "Ultra" code-breakers based at these sites. I am certainly looking forward to see the augmented film with subtitles once it becomes available, as to see what was being said as well will only add to the immediacy of this astonishing footage.
Dear me, has it really been three months since my last post? I suppose there's no getting away from the fact that I've had something of an impromptu blogging break, but here I am - like the proverbial bad penny - turning up again and I must say it's already beginning to feel like I've never been away. Let's hope I can sustain that feeling, get back to a post every once in a while and not become stuck in another rut!
So, what has caught my vintage eye (I actually have two you know) in the last few weeks? Read on to find out!
In my local seaside town, no less, came the discovery at the end of May of a part of the hugely important and super-rare coding machine used by the Germans in the Second World War - the Lorenz encryptor, bigger and even more complex brother of the famous Enigma machines. Discovered, in of all places, eBay! Misidentified as a telegraph keyboard, and up for auction at a mere £9.50, it was only sheer luck that the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park came across it - sitting in the seller's garage under a pile of junk! Surely this must rank as one of the ultimate eBay "finds"?! Well done to those eagle-eyed museum chaps for spotting this important part of computing and Second World War history, even if it is incomplete. Proof, if proof were needed, that there are still treasures to be found on that site - and on that note, while we're all searching around for that next bargain, keep an eye out for the Lorenz's motor, which is still yet to be found.
In related news a Second World War messaging post, one of 30 set up at the behest of Churchill in the face of the expected invasion of Britain in 1940, has been given listed status following its rediscovery in a disused Norfolk country house in 2012. One of only twelve so far discovered, it was sadly damaged by fire in 2014 but with this latest news and the encouraging noises being made by Historic England (previously English Heritage) one hopes that it can be restored and opened to the public as a museum detailing that pivotal point in our nations history and the important part these "In Stations" and there civilian operators would have played had the worst happened.
One man doing his best among hundreds to ensure the worst did not happen was Czech fighter pilot Emil Bocek, who trained as a teenage ground mechanic in 1940 before going on to earn his wings and fly Spitfires in combat from 1944. Later rising to the rank of General and now aged 93, he returned to Biggin Hill last month to fly a dual-control Spitfire over the skies of South London - the first time he's taken the controls of that wonderful aircraft in 70 years. Dobré pro vás, General Bocek!
Work continues apace on the reconstruction of Eric, the world's first functioning robot (as previously reported here). It sounds as though both the Science Museum and the chap building the replica are unsure of just how things will turn out, so it sounds like the plans that have been found are either incomplete or not detailed enough. Nevertheless I look forward to hearing of Eric's reawakening, in what will no doubt be the closest form to the original that the existing information will allow.
This last article is an absolute pip, just the kind of feel-good vintage news story I enjoy featuring on the blog. In this four-year centenary of the First World War there have been - and no doubt will continue to be - many such stories of descendants of Great War combatants uncovering fascinating accounts or honouring their relatives in some way (and rightly so!). This story of two brothers recreating the very aeroplane their grandfather flew in the Royal Naval Air Service during the Gallipoli campaign is a particularly stirring example and I'm delighted to see them make a success of it in time for a local air display. A more perfect way of honouring their grandfather's memory and providing an important glimpse into his life and exploits in the RNAS I couldn't imagine. Well done chaps!
That's me done for this post, then, but I sincerely hope and intend it not to be my last for another three months! I'm looking forward immensely to getting back into this blogging racket and with stories like these to choose from I certainly shouldn't be short of inspiration. Until next time folks, tinkerty-tonk!
Here's a corking story of the kind that is so beloved of this blogger and which we have had little of recently - a remarkable historical find with an edge of oddness about it.
Plenty of interesting, long-forgotten pieces of the past can be discovered during renovation work on old buildings and nesting birds are often a problem for those houses that still have a fireplace with a chimney. Here, however, the two have combined to create this amazing discovery - the skeletal remains of a Second World War carrier pigeon complete with leg capsule and, more importantly, the original message still contained within!
The whole story is almost unbelievable in the way it has unfolded and it isn't complete yet. The message, sent by an RAF sergeant from still-occupied Normandy in the early stages of D-Day and probably intended for Bletchley Park - a mere 80 miles from where the message was eventually discovered - or Field-Marshal Montgomery's London headquarters in St Paul's School, Barnes, is unusual not only for remaining attached to a dead pigeon's leg undiscovered (and undelivered) for over 60 years but for being in code when the majority of messages sent back from the D-Day operation were not. This implies that the contents were of major importance and highly secret.
Unfortunately no-one seems to know the code that was used and there are no extant records that reveal the cipher employed by this Sergeant W. Stot. Unless the modern-day codebreakers at GCHQ in Cheltenham, to whom the message has been handed, can use their skills to decode this mysterious message the information it contains will likely remain unknown. Would it have had an important bearing on the course of the war? Hopefully GCHQ can tell us, but either way it is a fantastic tale.
