We are pleased to welcome you to join us for this lecture and panel discussion as part of our Bletchley Park Week events.

The talk will be given by Mary Heneghan and Paddy O’Connell, and chaired by Dr Sarah-Louise Miller, Visiting Scholar at Kellogg College.

By 1945, seventy-five percent of the staff at Bletchley Park were women. Having signed the Official Secrets Act and taking their vows of secrecy extremely seriously, many of these women did not speak about or reveal their war service at Bletchley to anyone until decades after the conclusion of the conflict. Some never did. In this session, historian Dr Sarah-Louise Miller, TV and radio host Paddy O’Connell and Mary Heneghan, great-niece of Daphne Mary Moss, who worked at Bletchley Park, will discuss the ways in which, against societal expectations, women at Bletchley kept their work secret, and the ways in which their stories have been revealed. Paddy and Mary will share how they discovered that they each had a relative who worked at Bletchley.

Speakers:

Paddy O’Connell is a TV and Radio host. He worked with his late Mum, Betty on the history of Bletchley Park. She was a wartime WREN and assisted his broadcasts towards the end of her life. Paddy anchors BBC Radio Four’s Sunday morning hit programme “Broadcasting House,” and he hosts “Newsnight” on BBC 2. He is an Ambassador for the Royal Marine Charity and an Orwell Prize judge.

Betty worked at Bletchley Park on the Heath Robinson and Colossus machines from 1943. She returned to Bletchley Park often and wanted people – especially young women – to know the story. She appeared in a talk in Oxford on this subject just before the pandemic. After her death, Paddy discovered a diary in her attic about her social life in the final months of the war.

Dr Sarah-Louise Miller is a historian of war and conflict, specialising in air and sea power, military intelligence and defence and security. She is a lecturer at the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London, and teaches military education courses at the Defence Academy of the UK. She is also a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of History, and is a member of Kellogg College, Oxford. Sarah received her PhD from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, in July 2022. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was elected as a Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society in January 2024. Sarah is the author of several books, and appears regularly on British television and radio, having featured on various documentaries for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky History, National Geographic and PBS.

This in-person event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served from 5.00 pm, followed by the talk at 5.30 pm. There will be a Q&A session after the talk, and a drinks reception.

Bletchley Park Week:

This event is part of our annual Bletchely Park Week programme of events celebrating a partnership between Oxford and Bletchley Park. This year’s event is entitled ‘Women at Bletchley‘

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Please note:

This event may be photographed and filmed. If you do not wish to appear in the photographs/footage, please let the photographer/videographer know.

Should you have any further queries, or unable to attend after booking, please contact events@kellogg.ox.ac.uk.