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Exhibitions

Bletchley Park exhibition

Besi Besemar March 9, 2014

Stories of life by the people who worked there.

 Photograph supplied by Bletchley Community Heritage Initiative
Photograph supplied by Bletchley Community Heritage Initiative

An exhibition in Block B, Stories of Life at the Park, shares the first hand memories gathered through the ongoing Oral Archive project.

From breaking codes to mowing lawns, there was a huge variety of jobs at the top secret HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School during World War Two, and an even wider variety of people doing them.

The exhibition gives visitors a fascinating insight into the lives led by the remarkable men and women whose work helped to shorten the war by around two years and saved countless lives.

It looks at their social lives, food and billets, romances, entertainment and considers the then highly unusual mix of military and civilian staff, from a broad range of backgrounds.

Ann Lavell recalls the Beer Hut being “quite a haunt” and Margaret Ross recalls how the social life developed “At the beginning just one cinema in Bletchley. Rounders on the lawn in front of the house during lunch hour. Then people began to get organised…”

Photographs supplied by Bletchley Community Heritage Initiative show what Bletchley and the surrounding area looked like before the new town of Milton Keynes was built, alongside a large number of photographs showing the social life both indoors and out.

A highly atmospheric and meticulously laid out billet, courtesy of the Holley Cornelius Collection, takes visitors back in time, room-by-room, with details from a free-standing kitchen cabinet to stockings drying on an airer in the bedroom.

The Oral Archive project is in a race against time to gather as many Veterans’ memories as possible and needs more Volunteers to help.

For more information about Bletchley Park, CLICK HERE:

 

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