The

The From the home of the codebreakers and the birthplace of modern computing, this is the Bletchley Park podcast.

Welcome to the August 2018 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast. Welcome to the August 2018 episode of the Bletchley Park podcast, Captain Ridley's shooting party. In this It Happened Here episode, we'll be taking you further back than our normal

75 years, this time to September 1938. 20 years after the Great War, the clouds of conflict were again looming

across Europe. Hitler threatened Czechoslovakia and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberl

flew to Germany to try to avert war. At the same time, in Buckinghamshire, at an unassuming,

recently purchased country house, activity was stepping up.

On the 18th of September, a group known today as Captain Ridley's shooting party arrived at Bletchley Park.

The cover story concealed their true purpose, a dress rehearsal for war.

The 150 strong shooting party were staffed from the Government Code and Cipher School and the Secret Intelligence Service, testing out a move to their war station.

Our research historian Dr David Kenyon delves into this part of our story to reveal recently discovered facts about the origins of code breaking at Bletchley Park.

This is Bletchley Park.

It happened here. So David, this piece of research started with a photograph,

I think. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Well, we do have one picture in our archival collection,

which is of Captain Ridley's shooting party as it's become known. It's photograph at the front

of the mansion, and there are a number of men in become known. It's photographed at the front of the mansion,

and there are a number of men in suits sort of milling about outside the front door.

And for a long time, that was more or less the limit of what we knew about this particular event.

But as the anniversary has come round, we've had an opportunity to look into it in a lot more detail,

and we've able to flesh out the story with a lot more information. It's part of Bletchley Park's myth, really, isn't it? But actually, when you look at the photograph we have, it's quite indistinct.

You can't really tell who those people are. There's no way really to date what was going on.

So how did you set about discovering

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