E121 - Oral History Special No. 5

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

April 2021

Our Veterans who served in one of the three women’s auxiliary services during World War Two are always proud of their particular branch and WAAF Daphne Canning is no exception. When Oral History Officer Jonathan Byrne interviewed her in 2017 she was still proud to have worn her ‘Sparks’ badge; the insignia of a Royal Air Force Wireless Operator.

These Oral History Specials allow us to bring you the complete recordings of interviews we have previously featured only as much shorter versions. In this episode, Daphne, who volunteered at 17½, tells us about becoming a Wireless Operator, then later a Morse Slip Reader and also how she survived a being hit by a V1 rocket.

This interview is really three for the price of one because Daphne also tells us the stories of her father and her husband. All three of them linked not just as family but as Wireless Operators helping the Codebreakers at Bletchley Park.

Image, courtesy of Mrs Daphne Canning.

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #OralHistory,

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:38.7	Welcome to this additional episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Welcome to this additional episode of the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:43.7	Oral History Special, number five.
0:47.3	Our veterans who served in one of the three women's auxiliary services during World War II
0:51.5	are always proud of their particular branch.
0:55.7	And WAF, Daphne Canningunning is no exception. When oral history officer Jonathan Byrne interviewed her in 2017,
1:02.1	she was still proud to have worn her Sparks badge, the insignia of a Royal Air Force wireless
1:07.7	operator. These oral history specials allow us to bring you the complete recordings of interviews
1:13.4	we've previously featured only as much shorter versions.
1:17.8	And in this episode, Daphne, who volunteered at 17 and a half, tells us about becoming a
1:22.8	wireless operator, then later a more slip reader, and also how she survived being hit by a V1 rocket.
1:30.3	You're really getting three for the price of one because Daphne also tells us the stories of her father and her husband.
1:37.3	All three of them linked not just as family but as wireless operators helping the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
1:57.3	Today it is Wednesday, the 31st of May 2017.
2:00.1	I'm Jonathan Byrne from the Bletchley Park Trust,
2:02.1	and I'm delighted to be interviewing Mrs Daphne Canning, formerly Tucker. And here with me is also Fiona Jenkins from Bletchley
2:08.0	Park and Daphne's daughter Gail. If we start with what you were doing before you joined the Waffs.
2:14.0	Well, I left school when I was 14 and went to a secretarial college in London. It was
2:21.0	Pittman's College and learnt short-hand and typing and business procedure. And then I finished there
2:29.2	in 1942 and went to work in a solicitor's office in London in Lincoln's Infield.
2:39.7	I went there for nine months.
	...

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