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Pamela Rose

Kirsty Young talks to castaway and former Bletchley girl Pamela Rose.

Kirsty Young's castaway is Pamela Rose.

Now aged 97, she was a Bletchley Girl who spent her war years working in total secrecy, painstakingly indexing snippets of information that would prove vital to the the war effort. Alan Turing and his fellow cryptanalysts would eventually break the Enigma Code and it's said that this breakthrough shortened the war by two years.

Born into a musical family, she first took to the stage at boarding school. Pamela's lifelong ambition to be an actress was interrupted by the war and the invitation to work at Bletchley. Despite finding the work in the indexing section of Hut 4 something of a disappointment at first, she and her fellow workers still managed to have fun and she met her husband Jim at a hop when he asked her to dance. They married after the war and it wasn't until nearly sixty years later and after Jim's death that she would finally achieve her dream of acting on the West End stage.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Available now

45 minutes

Last on

Fri 5 Jun 2015 09:00
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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Clip

Music Played

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    La ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni

    Performer: Barbara Bonney. Performer: HΓ₯kan HagegΓ₯rd.
    • Barbara Bonney Sings Mozart.
    • DECCA.

  • Yvette Guilbert

    The Voyage to Bethlehem

    • Le Fiacre.
    • FLAPPER.

  • Cyril Cusack & Siobhan McKenna

    Let you wait to hear me talkin' from the Playboy of the Western WorldΒ’

    • The Playboy of the Western World.
    • COLUMBIA.

  • Fred Astaire

    Night and Day

    • Cheek to Cheek.
    • CONIFER.

  • Benjamin Britten

    We'll leave the orchids for Lucretia from the Rape of Lucretia

    Performer: Kathleen Ferrier. Performer: Anna Pollack. Performer: Margaret Ritchie. Performer: English Opera Group. Performer: Reginald Goodall.
    • The Rape of Lucretia.
    • Gala.

  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Sonata No 10 in G major, op 14 no 2

    Performer: Denis Matthews.
    • Denis Matthews: Beethoven Sonatas Nos. 10 & 23.
    • COLUMBIA.

  • CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE

    • George Gershwin

      Summertime from Porgy and Bess

      Performer: Harolyn Blackwell. Performer: Glyndebourne Chorus. Performer: The London Philarmonic. Performer: Sir Simon Rattle.
      • Porgy And Bess.
      • EMI classics.

  • Franz Schubert

    Piano Sonata in B flat, D. 960

    Performer: Alfred Brendel.
    • Schubert Piano Sonata in B Flat, D 960 / Fantasy in C...
    • PHILIPS.

  • BOOK CHOICE

    Collected Poems of T.S.Eliot

  • LUXURY ITEM

    A very comfortable four-poster bed with a mackintosh roof

Credits

Presenter Kirsty Young
Interviewed Guest Pamela Rose
Producer Cathy Drysdale

Broadcasts

  • Sun 31 May 2015 11:16
    ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 FM
  • Fri 5 Jun 2015 09:00
    ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4

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