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 future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
“Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Nietzsche, to the end of his days, remained a Russian pastor’s son, and hence two-thirds of a Puritan; he erected his war upon holiness, toward the end, into a sort of holy war.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“If melodrama is the quintessence of drama, farce is the quintessence of theatre. Melodrama is written. A moving image of the world is provided by a writer. Farce is acted. The writer’s contribution seems not only absorbed but translated.... One cannot imagine melodrama being improvised. The improvised drama was pre-eminently farce.”
—Eric Bentley (b. 1916)
“It was evident that the same foolish respect was not here claimed for mere wealth and station that is in many parts of New England; yet some of them were the “first people,” as they are called, of the various towns through which we passed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)