NEWS: BIKE RESTORERS: YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU

Bletchley Park is looking for volunteers to carry out essential maintenance on a rare Second World War dispatch rider’s motorcycle, as well as other vintage vehicles - two of which were used in the 2001 film, Enigma.

Calling all bike restorers..

 A Norton WD16H dispatch rider’s motorcycle is now on display in the newly refurbished garages at Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, where visitors can learn about other forms of transport used in the process from intercepting encrypted radio traffic to delivering suitably disguised vital intelligence to commanders in the field. Meanwhile a BSA (Birmingham Small Arms Company) motorcycle has recently been kindly donated by the family of the late John Hazel.

Anyone interested in volunteering to help maintain any of the vehicles on display at Bletchley Park is invited to contact Sarah Kay, sarahkay@bletchleypark.org.uk 01908 640404.

A passion for motorcycles and patriotic duty prompted many enthusiasts to become dispatch riders during the war. At the peak of Bletchley Park’s codebreaking operation, around 3000 messages per day were brought to the government code and cipher school’s top secret HQ by dispatch riders. Some were based at Bletchley Park, with more stationed around the country, collecting messages from the many Y (listening) stations. Some were armed and they travelled up to 1200 miles per week.

Dispatch Rider Nevil Horsfall said: “We knew Bletchley Park was a ‘big deal’ and although we were bright enough to recognise that it was not just a cipher school and that interception of enemy signals was somehow involved, we had no idea about enemy codebreaking and the importance of Bletchley Park efforts during the war, to us it was largely, business as usual.”

Pictured is Nevil Horsfall (left), a Bletchley Park dispatch rider, with his brother Alan.

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