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This story has been submitted by Jean Holmes of the Lancashire ��ѿ��ý Guard on behalf of Gerald Openshaw and has been added to the People's War site with his permission.

I had to tell everyone that I was in the army, a corporal in the Royal Signals, but I was actually stationed at Bletchley Park as a morse code expert.

I was a radio ham before the war, an expert in sending and receiving messages in morse code. I was recruited to be a member of the Radio Security Service at Bletchley Park, where I spent my time “stealing”, or eavesdropping on the German messages. Many radio hams were secretly recruited and worked from home as civilians.

When I was called up I was officially a corporal in the Royal Signals, but I was paid by the Foreign Office. Then corporals received £6 per week, but I received £7. Obviously I had to sign the Official Secrets Act. The military police didn’t know how to treat us as we had a pass and they were told that we were to be given every assistance.

Since the war I have kept in touch with other operatives through radio. Bletchley Park is now a museum, preserved for posterity through the BP Trust.

The government realised that radio amateurs were more highly skilled in morse code than freshly trained service personnel. The German operators also used a specialised language. There is an international code for specific questions and replies. for example, “Where are you? is QRA? “What time is it?” is QTR?

When I was due for demob I was asked if I would like a job at GCHQ at Cheltenham, but the GPO telephone service at Blackburn had kept my job open for me throughout my time in the army. They had paid into a Post Office savings account the difference between the money I would have been earning and the pay of a corporal in the army. When I started work for them again and they realised I had been earning more, I had to repay about £50.

It has been good to be able to speak about what I did during the war. For years I was never allowed to tell anyone.

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