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:
“School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weaponno alternative.”
—Golda Meir (18981978)
“At last, after innumerable glamorous and frightful years, mankind approaches a war which is totally predictable from beginning to end.”
—Frederic Raphael (b. 1931)
“The corruption of the age is produced by the individual contribution of each one of us; some contribute treachery, others injustice, irreligion, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, in accordance with their greater power; the weaker ones bring stupidity, vanity, passivity, and I am one of them.”
—Michel de Montaigne (15331592)
“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 (18171862)