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(Continued from page 1)
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
SUMMER VISIT
Date: Wednesday June 25
Event: Visit to Kensington Palace. Arrive 10.30 for coffee in the Orangery restaurant. At 11am the
audioguided tour of Kensington Palace will start with the exhibition “The Last Debutantes”. From there, visitors are led to the “Diana, Fashion and Style” display followed by the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection and the State Apartments (approximately 18 rooms). The tour takes about 1hr45min and lunch is planned for 1.00—this is again in the Orangery restaurant.
Price: £27-50
AUTUMN VISIT
Date: Wednesday October 8
Event: Visit Lord’s Cricket Ground. Arrive for coffee at 10.30 in the Lord’s Taverners. Take a guided tour around 11.00 and see the Museum, Wisden Trophy, The Ashes, The Long Room, The Players Dressing Room, the Real Tennis Court, The Grandstand and the Media Tent. This takes about 1hr40min. Lunch will be at 1pm in the Lord’s Taverners.
Price: £27-50
THE LUNCHEON & AFTER LUNCHEON TALK
After renewing old friendships over the odd G&T we eventually moved into the luncheon room
We started with Soused Mackerel with a cucumber salad and horseradish cream. This was followed by Chicken Supreme stuffed with spinach, Ricotta and pine nuts with a chive and tomato sauce. This was served with beans and Gnocchi Paolino. For a dessert we had Chocolate Cinnamon Mousse. Coffee and mints followed. The wines were Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and the National Liberal Club Claret.
Our Speaker was Bob King who is a radio ham well known to our President, Ian Alexander. He is 86 and was at Bletchley Park during the war. We hear a great deal about the code breaking activities there but not so much about how the information was obtained before it was passed to the code breakers. It was Bob’s job to listen to the Morse transmissions and to accurately decode them. There were other listening stations who tuned in to the same transmissions and it was hoped that if a signal faded for Bob, it would be audible to one of the other stations. The code groups (none were in normal language) were compared and the agreed version given to those who would decipher the messages. He showed us an early regenerative receiver that was used which was very simple and only had, I think, three valves. Later superheterodyne receivers were used, which were very much more stable. Bob explained how he could recognize the keying techniques of certain operators and how he was involved with certain agents who were also sending messages.
Afterwards the President thanked Bob and those present gave a round of applause for an interesting talk.
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