I still know Morse code at 100, says World War Two codebreaker

A 100-year-old veteran codebreaker who intercepted German messages has spoken publicly for the first time about her role in World War Two.

Throughout the war, Cynthia Evans was stationed at Chicksands Priory, near Shefford, Bedfordshire, and spent her days relaying messages to the famous Bletchley Park codebreaking hub.

“All through the war, we always referred to Bletchley Park as ‘Station X’. I didn’t know [it was] Bletchley Park,” she told BBC Breakfast reporter Jayne McCubbin.

After signing the Official Secrets Act, Cynthia didn’t reveal anything about her past, even to her own family, until the 1970s.

Born in Plymouth in 1925, she joined the RAF at 17 because, according to her daughter, she liked the uniform. She was immediately enrolled in specialist intelligence training.

“I had to learn all about the wireless because in those days we had pentode valves and triode valves,” said Cynthia.

“I learned all about Ohm’s law, Faraday’s law and Lenz’s right and left-hand rule. [But] I never used any of it because it was all Morse, and I was good at Morse.”

Following the outbreak of war, Cynthia was stationed at Chicksands but she couldn’t tell even her parents where she was.

“We were all sworn to secrecy. And if you uttered a word as to what you were doing, you were going to an RAF prison for the rest of the war,” she said.

MoD Chicksands was known as a “Y station”. It intercepted and logged coded enemy transmissions.

Cynthia spent her days listening to German messages.

“[It] was called box cipher. It was in groups of five letters, and I had a big pad which had ‘Secret’ on it.”

The messages were sent to Bletchley Park, some 20 miles away in neighbouring Buckinghamshire.

“We knew exactly what [the Germans] were up to because Alan Turing, bless him, he broke the code.”

After the war, Cynthia moved back to Plymouth and got a job as a telephone operator at the General Post Office. She married and had two daughters and the family went on to live in the US for some years.

But decades later, as a widow and with her daughters and granddaughter living in Manchester, she moved there herself in 2018.

This year, in June, she celebrated her 100th birthday with a party attended by friends and family from across the UK and abroad.

She was also given the “1919-2019” GCHQ centenary pin badge as a gift from GCHQ, and met Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who thanked her for her service all those years ago.

Her memories of wartime service have not faded, even 80 years on.

“Can you still do Morse code?” Jayne asked.

“Yes, I can” Cynthia replied.

“I can tell you, your name is Jane. Dot, dash, dash, dash, dit dot, dah dit, dit. That’s Jane.”