The School's Secret War Contribution At Station X
Three former staff and a pupil at the Harvey worked at the once secret code breaking centre at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes, which was recently made public and has become a tourist attraction. Their unique roles are honoured on a plaque in the school hall. The school's Headmaster Oliver Berthoud (1946–1952) was there, as was the school's long-serving secretary Miss Audrey Wind. Although they worked closely in the school it was not until a discussion one day in Mr Berthoud's office that he managed to get Miss Wind to admit to her involvement and they spoke at length about their time there.
On a visit to the school in late 2006 Miss Wind commented that no one was allowed to talk about their involvement. They were sworn to secrecy and it was amazing that four Harveians had worked for Ultra during the war. She is the sole survivor of the four but now in her eighties still gives talks on the topic at functions and at the school to boys studying the period. Following her half-century of service to the school, Miss Wind became the first and only female member of the school's old boys' association.
Read more about this topic: The Harvey Grammar School
Famous quotes containing the words school, secret, war, contribution and/or station:
“The first rule of education for me was discipline. Discipline is the keynote to learning. Discipline has been the great factor in my life. I discipline myself to do everythinggetting up in the morning, walking, dancing, exercise. If you wont have discipline, you wont have a nation. We cant have permissiveness. When someone comes in and says, Oh, your room is so quiet, I know Ive been successful.”
—Rose Hoffman, U.S. public school third-grade teacher. As quoted in Working, book 8, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons.”
—Croesus (d. c. 560 B.C.)
“Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with themtheir only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)
“Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro worlds unnumberd tho the God be known,
Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
”
—Alexander Pope (16881744)