E178 - VE Day 80: Objects and Memories
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park
4.8 • 177 Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
To mark 80 years since the end of the war in Europe, this episode takes a closer look at four intriguing items from Bletchley Park’s collections. The team digs deeper into the stories that lie behind a mysterious message, a misunderstood photograph, a moving memo and audio of a Veteran’s memories of VE Day.
Head of Content Erica Munro meets up with Research Historian Dr David Kenyon, Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham and Museum Archivist Dean Annison. Plus producer Mark Cotton speaks with former WRNS Bombe Operator Ruth Bourne about her VE Day memories.
Many thanks to Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.
To see the objects we discuss in this episode, visit www.bletchleypark.org.uk/our-story/e178-ve80/
Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2025
#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Enigma, #VEDay80,
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. |
| 0:39.0 | Welcome to the April 2025 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. |
| 0:45.5 | VE Day 80. Objects and memories. |
| 0:50.8 | VE Day, Victory in Europe Day, was the 8th of May, 1945. |
| 0:56.1 | It was the day that the German surrender was formally enacted. |
| 0:59.5 | The end of the war was rather a mixed event at Bletchley Park. |
| 1:03.7 | We know that lots of people had lots of different experiences. |
| 1:07.1 | People's memories that have been passed down and the objects that have survived tell |
| 1:10.6 | a real variety of stories, |
| 1:12.5 | and it's some of those that we'll be bringing you today. |
| 1:15.5 | We'll be speaking to our research historian, Dr David Kenyon, to our research officer, Dr Thomas Cheatham, |
| 1:21.3 | and to the museum archivist Dean Anneson about a variety of treasures from our collection, |
| 1:26.6 | including a famous photograph, a morse message, |
| 1:30.6 | an emotional letter, and we'll be hearing the voice of one of our wonderful veterans. |
| 1:34.9 | We'll start with David Kenyon. Before we look at this treasure that you have, David, |
| 1:40.8 | can you give us a bit of background about VE Day? What did the end of the war, |
| 1:45.2 | and particularly VE Day, look like at Bletchley Park? What's quite striking about VE Day at |
| 1:49.3 | Bletchley Park is that the popular image of the day is of people in Trafalgar Square partying |
| 1:54.5 | and, you know, the whole country going crazy because the war's finished. I think at |
| 1:58.1 | Bletchley Park, it would have been a lot more low key. And what you have |
| 2:01.6 | to appreciate is the organisation was going full steam ahead, doing all of the different |
... |
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