The Cornish village of St. Erth may seem an unlikely setting for a Second World War story of code breaking, spies and double agents, but the talk at Bude & District U3A’s September Monthly Meeting showed otherwise, for the Ultra Secret MI6 facility there played an important role in the allied victory. The
speaker, at the Parkhouse Centre last week, was Mike Griffiths and the illustrated talk attracted a large turnout of U3A members and guests.
U3A Chairman, Jim Buck, began the afternoon with the telling of a short humorous story, before reminding members that the Annual General Meeting is on October 16th and how important it is to attend. Vice Chair, Nick Faulks then introduced Mike Griffiths, who related the story of the Bletchley Park Radio Station in St. Erth and his father, Harry Griffiths, who was a radio operator there throughout the war. St Erth was one of several Bletchley outstations – its ‘ears’. They were listening to the Germans talking to each other and then sent what they heard to the Bletchley Park codebreakers.
Harry Griffiths was born in Liverpool and came to Cornwall when he was recruited to work at St Erth. ‘My father was very good at Morse Code’, said Mike. ‘He learnt it in the Scouts and could send code at more than 30 words per minute.’ Mike said that while his father never said anything about what he did in the war. When he died in 1984, Mike was left a tape made during the war and his father’s ‘Little Black Book’ – his book containing codes and which recorded many of his contacts, German and Italian radio nets, brevity codes and double agent call signs. ‘If you have an elderly relative, sit them down with a cup of tea and get them to tell you their story. Get it out. They will have something of interest to tell. Do it before it’s too late,’ Mike told his audience.
Mike and his wife, Pearl, researched the history of the St Erth site over ten years. His book, ‘Listening to the Enemy’, tells the story of the radio station and its role in the war and links to Bletchley Park. Mike showed a picture of a dilapidated single story concrete building by the side of the road, all that is left of the once important site where Ultra Top Secret work was carried out for MI6. Mike said that the operation was so secret that his father initially believed that he was working for the GPO. More than 100 people worked at the site during the war.
They were listening to European stations sending messages to Germany and because of the nature of Morse Code, the operators would be able to recognize who was sending. ‘As a result, Bletchley Park knew more than the Germans’, said Mike, ‘but there were no secrets in the village. Local people set their watches by the radio station shift times and sometimes came and sat with the operators. Farmers grazed their livestock on the station site, and football and cricket matches were played between radio station and village teams!
Mike then turned to operations at Bletchley Park, showing photos of people at work there and the machines they used. Some 10,000 people from all over the country, including many women, were involved during World War II he said. He spoke too about the roles of renowned codebreaker, Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman – the ‘architect of ultra intelligence’, a mathematician who led the Enigma decryption team in Hut 6. Welchman used ‘traffic analysis’ to track decrypted messages. ‘You are all subject to tracking now’, Mike told his audience. ‘GCHQ can track you anywhere if you have a mobile phone in your back pocket.’
Also mentioned were Tommy Fellowes who invented the first programmable electronic computer to help solve encrypted German messages, and Bill Tuttle who broke the Nazi cypher system. Some of the double agents, their roles in defeating the Nazis and the story of how they were tracked at St Erth, were also featured. They included Agents Zigzag, Tricycle, Brutus and Treasure. Their controlling stations call signs are all listed in Harry’s Code Book.
The St Erth station closed in 1964 when GCHQ Bude took over its work. The talk ended with a brief look at how we ‘listen’ now. GCHQ is part of the ‘Five Eyes’ network, GCHQ Cheltenham is still expanding, while in London there is the huge new National Cyber Centre in Victoria which opened in 2017. Loud applause greeted the speaker as he finished his talk, with several members of the audience then approaching Mike to ask questions and share histories.
The talk at the Bude U3A November meeting is on Bude Lifesaving Club. The monthly meeting in October is for the Annual General Meeting. Bude U3A also offers two Coffee Mornings each month in addition to the 35 Activity Groups available for members. The 2025/26 Membership year has just begun. Details on how to apply and on all Bude U3A events and activities can be found at:
www.budeu3a.co.uk.
Anna Crew