Writing my books, I am lucky to say, has prompted many groups to ask me to give talks to them. As at December 2024, my diary is filling up; there's Bletchley Park (twice) - as well as various U3A and local history groups. 

Over the last few months, I have written several articles/blogs about the many secret communication sites erected by MI6 (also known as SIS) in my local area during World War Two. As they were controlled from Whaddon Hall (near Bletchley Park), I call the sites The Whaddon Web.

Communications for the Czechs and Poles

This series of articles deals with the many hilltop sites on which MI6’s communications section (HQ at Whaddon) put up aerials to support the Allied war effort. But that network - The Whaddon Web - was but one small part of Allied intelligence activity in the Second World War. Leighton Buzzard is one place where Whaddon’s activities overlapped with others. While MI6 put up the aerials at nearby Royal Air Force (RAF) Stoke Hammond (for sending secure messages to the far east), the station itself was run from RAF Stanbridge, just up the road….

The most extensive array of aerial sites set up by MI6 from its HQ at Whaddon was the Bicester Group. This spread across five different parishes in the low hills that form the county boundary between Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. The reason why Bicester had so many sites was that Whaddon, having first constructed there to support British operations, later added similar sites nearby for our American allies.

In this series of blogs, I have up to now written about the area close to Whaddon (a couple of miles from Bletchley Park), the headquarters of MI6’s communications network during World War Two. I have talked about some of the astonishing sites in the hills there - where MI6 put up their listening and transmitting posts during the war. I have visited nearly all of these places in my walks in the area. Although most of the aerials are long gone, all of the sites have some evidence of their extraordinary past. Often it is slight; perhaps a concrete block in a field where a cable-stay to an antennae was moored, or an oddly-sturdy cow shed.

The intention of ‘Black’ Propaganda is to push its audience in a certain direction without them realising it. To do this, it mixes facts with liberal dollops of half-truths and lies. Often it gives the impression that it was created by those it aims to discredit.

The Whaddon Web articles published so far have attracted quite a lot of interest. As a result of them, I have been contacted by several people with further information, some of it very interesting.  One of them was Dave Price, via the Olney Facebook page; thank you Dave! He has an interesting back-story in communications himself – and has collected some real prize exhibits, some of which he has donated to Bletchley Park.

This article first appeared in the author’s local parish magazine Focus (June 2023 edition)

This article first appeared in the author’s local parish magazine Focus (May 2023 edition)

This article first appeared in the author’s local parish magazine Focus (April 2023 edition)