E44 - Bombe Girls

Bletchley Park

History

4.8 • 177 Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2016

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

March 2016

In this month’s brand new episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, Bombe Girls, meet some of the trailblazing women who were assigned to Special Duties X or posted to HMS Pembroke 5 when they joined the Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service or WRNS).

These women found themselves at Bletchley Park - or, in many cases - at one of its huge, industrial outstations on the fringes of London - operating state of the art machines created to speed up the process of finding the daily Enigma settings on many different networks. They’d never heard of Enigma and didn’t know how their work fit into the wider intelligence operation, but they understood how important it was - and how essential it was that they kept it secret.

Hear from the inspirational Helen Legh, a BBC radio presenter who’s been undergoing treatment for brain tumours. She took time out to indulge in some vintage pampering at the ever-glamorous 1940s Boutique.

A cracking Easter approaches at Bletchley Park and this month’s episode tells you what’s being laid on for children including trails, workshops and the chance to win a Suzuki Vitara.

Visit Bletchley Park. It happened here. Open daily.

Thanks to The Three Belles for the music featured in this episode. You can find them at http://www.thethreebelles.com/

#BPark, #Bletchleypark, #Enigma, #WW2Veteran, #History, #AlanTuring

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.
0:43.1	Welcome to the March 2016 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Bomb Girls.
0:55.4	This month we bring you memories from the trailblazing women who were selected for Special Duties X or instructed to board the mythical HMS Pembroke 5 when they joined the Wrens and found themselves operating state-of-the-art new machines at Bletchley Park or one of its huge industrial outstations.
1:01.5	We'll also find out about all the exciting things you can do with your children at
1:05.6	Fletchley Park this Easter. Oh sorry, had to be done. Don't forget under 12s free entry all year round, so it's exactly what you need for an Easter day out. Oh dear, moving on. Before all of that, it's time to introduce you to a dear friend of mine. Now, forgive me, this is a bit indulgent, but Helen Lee is pretty special. She's a BBC three counties radio presenter and we used to work
1:29.3	together starting at five o'clock every morning to make a breakfast show. She now presents the Sunday
1:34.2	breakfast show which you can find online if you don't happen to be listening to this podcast in either
1:39.1	Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire. Helen is also a ghostly figure projected onto a wall at Bletchley Park,
1:46.4	as she was one of the volunteer actors who took part in creating the atmospheric interpretation
1:51.2	of the co-breaking huts when they were restored in 2014. You can find her at the far end of Hutt 6,
1:58.4	pushing decoded messages through a shoot to Hutt 3.
2:01.6	None of that is why you should hear this though.
2:03.6	Helen has been undergoing treatment for brain tumours, including major surgery.
2:08.6	So we thought, who better to indulge in a bit of vintage glamour at the 1940s boutique?
2:14.6	It's a day-long workshop and tutorial session,
2:18.7	teaching you how to create the iconic wartime look
2:21.5	with your hair in victory rolls
2:23.1	and the tricks of make-do and men makeup.
2:26.4	Don't sit under the apple tree
2:28.3	with anyone else about me.
2:31.1	Anyone else fuck me.
	...

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