The

The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to this additional episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Welcome to this additional episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Inside GCHly HQ.

In this exclusive episode, podcast producer Mark Cotton was given special permission to record

inside the normally top secret walls of GCHQ in Cheltenham.

There he met their official historian, Tony Comer, to talk about the life of a modern

GCHQ insider, as well as the history contained in their own secret museum.

Tony also gives us some sneak peek into how their upcoming centenary in 2019 will be celebrated.

Thank you. into how their upcoming centenary in 2019 will be celebrated. I'm sat somewhere now that if you were to ask me 10 years ago, I don't think I'd ever have thought that I would be sitting here. I'm sat in GCHQ.

And it's been quite strange journey because you realize you're coming to one of the most secret places in the world.

And go through a number of levels of security to get in here.

And it's like another world in a way.

I've got Tony Comer, the official GCHQ historian with me,

and we're going to talk about really the changes to GCHQ and how it's changed over the years

and how it is for someone personally to actually work here and have had their career here.

Now, Tony, you've not always been the historian. We're not going to talk about what you did,

but you've worked for GCHQ for a number of years, haven't you?

I've worked here for 34 years, and I'm part of the generation that joined an organisation

that nobody knew what it was and what it did. And I've gone through all of the change to

GCHQ in 2017

where everybody knows about it

and lots of people think they know all about what we do.

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