E21 - It nearly drove us mad

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2014

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

April 2014

This month, we take you inside the 1940s Boutique, a new event which helps you recreate wartime glamour. We hear from the daughter and granddaughters of a woman who may or may not have worked at Bletchley Park but who, family legend has it, knew her brother had been killed in action when the rest of her family could only be told he was missing.

We take a sneak peek inside the soon to be opened Codebreaking Huts, taken back to their wartime glory as part of the £8 million restoration of Bletchley Park, meeting the volunteer actors who have become part of the way we tell this incredible story. We find out just how close we came to losing those wooden huts altogether.

We also hear from a woman who, 70 years on, says her work in the Y service nearly drove her mad. Margaret Reardon (nee Chapman) recalls “Quite a few people broke down. There was a joke about one man who drew ducks on the blackboard and was feeding them - he had to be carried off. It really got into you.”

The music you can hear in this episode is from those brilliant Bletchley Park supporters The Three Belles.

Find out more about them at http://thethreebelles.com

Picture ©Elbow Productions

#BPark, #BletchleyPark, #Enigma, #livinghistory, #TheThreeBelles, #mcfontaine

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The From the home of the co-breakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:37.2	Welcome to the April 2014 edition of the Bletchley Park podcast.
0:41.8	This month we take you inside the 1940s boutique, a new event which helps you recreate wartime glamour.
0:48.4	We hear from the daughter and granddaughters of a woman who may or may not have worked at Bletchley Park,
0:53.3	but who family legend has
0:54.6	it knew her brother had been killed in action, when the rest of her family could only be told
0:59.3	he was missing. We take a sneak peek inside the soon-to-be-opened code-breaking huts, taken back to
1:05.6	their wartime glory as part of the transformation of Bletchley Park. We'll find out just how close
1:10.5	we came to losing those wooden huts altogether,
1:13.5	and we'll hear from a woman who, 70 years on,
1:16.2	says her work in the Y service nearly drove her mad.
1:19.6	But first, volunteer actors from the local community
1:22.4	will help bring code-breaking huts three and six to life
1:25.4	through their projected images and voices.
1:28.1	The diverse group were delighted to become part of Bletchley Park's history.
1:32.3	They were filmed inside the historic huts themselves by Elbow Productions,
1:36.8	the specialist company creating the digital interpretation
1:39.8	as part of the $8 million dollar lottery funded restoration of Bletchley Park.
1:45.2	I sneaked in to talk to a few of them.
1:52.9	It's been hut eight, which is currently closed and being put to great use, preparing people to look World War II ready.
1:59.5	Sitting next to a chap who's having his roots done, I think, is fair to say.
	...

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