Bletchley Park (1946)

Post date: Jun 23, 2014 3:51:1 PM

In 1946 Neil Webster moved to the Thatched House in Wateringbury (on Tonbridge Road at junction with Mill Lane) with his wife Elizabeth and their 3 children (Andrew, Jocelyn and Roger) just before their 4th child, Godfrey, was born in September 1946. An accident at home to Roger (b. 1944) in October ended in his death at hospital. Neil joined the Reference Division of the newly formed Central Office of Information in 1947. The family stayed in Wateringbury until 1960 when they moved back to their roots in Gloucestershire. In 1990 Neil died. For part of their stay in Wateringbury they lived opposite Admiral Sir Henry Ruthven Moore in the Beck and had been a major "consumer" of naval Enigma intelligence during WW2.

Major Neil Webster's book Cribs for Victory:the untold story of Bletchley Park's secret room (ISBN 9780955954184) tells his story of when he worked at Bletchley Park where he was a liaison officer between traffic analysis and cryptography. This is referred to variously as SIXTA or the Fusion Room. The reference to "cribs" relates to the search for short pieces of enciphered text where the meaning can be guessed to allow the whole cipher to be broken. Even after the role of Bletchley Park became generally known, his book was still banned from publication until 2011.