From Caterham to MI6

Omnia talks to M16 veteran Geoffrey Pidgeon, 93, who can still recall the finest detail of his time at Caterham some eight decades later.

YOUNGEST MEMBER OF MI6 WARTIME CONTRIBUTION HONOURED

Geoffrey with his award and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and French Ambassador Catherine Colonna

On 28 October 2019, Geoffrey Pidgeon

(OC 1936-1940) received France’s highest civil and military honour for his work with MI6 during the Second World War in setting up wireless communications for the D-Day landings.

The French Government has been awarding the Légion d’Honneur for the last five years as a way of honouring those who risked their lives to liberate France during the Second World War. The medal was presented to Geoffrey by French Ambassador Catherine Colonna at Lancaster House, the location where the UK and France signed the Lancaster Agreement in November 2010. This comprises two treaties: defence and security, and nuclear cooperation.

Geoffrey’s time in MI6 included covert missions across the Channel and working in Winston Churchill’s ‘most secret airfield’ in Tempsford, Bedfordshire. He was part of MI6’s Section VIII, and has since written a book about his unit’s work, The Secret Wireless War.

Following this honour, Geoffrey and his family were invited to a tour of Downing Street. 2019 has been quite the year for him, yet he found time to return to school and reminisce for Omnia… 

Above: The Mikado programme cover, 1937 Right: Whaddon Hall, headquarters of MI6 Section VIII

You attended Caterham School from 1936 to 1940, what brought you to Caterham School?

I won a Surrey County scholarship in May 1936. My first moments however were a little scary. I was only ten years old and was interviewed by three large men sitting across a table in the Headmaster’s office. They were all dressed in black and I had never seen masters in gowns before. Left to right were Mr Soderberg, Headmaster of the new Prep School, Dr Hall, the Headmaster and Dr Stafford the Deputy Head.

What are your favourite memories of your time at Caterham School?

Taken overall, I have very happy memories of my time at Caterham. House Cricket matches on Wednesday afternoons in the summer, followed by a swim in the original swimming baths which were alongside the science block (now Eothen building). All you had to do was to find fifteen others and a prefect to take responsibility!

Undoubtedly, my favourite subject was General Knowledge always taken by Dr Hall for one period a week. We were fully aware of the work of the Nazi Party. The Headmaster – who had earlier been the Professor of History in Rangoon – had an intense dislike of its worst evils, which were just appearing. In the Prep School we played football but in the Main School we started rugby. Our coach was Reggie Hayward, a most likeable man. He was a talented linguist who taught us Latin, German and French. He wrote a book called Je Veux Dite that sold well in other schools. He had studied at Heidelberg University and each year we exchanged visits to play a hockey match. In 1938 their team were on the Home Field lined up in front of our first team. The whole school were expected to watch. Dr Hall greeted each player but after the exchange of banners, the German team gave the Nazi salute!

‘Moose’ Maddock our physics master, one of my few good subjects. Several times I was rewarded with a jar of honey from his beehives.

The Headmaster and others promptly marched off and never reappeared. Needless to say, we had no intention of playing the return match in 1939, but it would not have been possible as World War II had started in the September.

Hubert Walker was our Geography Master and was also a widely known mountaineer. He wrote, among other books, A Sketch Map Geography and was doing so during lessons in the Prep! I’m sure Heffner – sitting behind me in form 2B did one of the sketches. He was later our Form Master when we went into the Main School. Perhaps many pupils remember him not for his judicious use of the gym slipper as punishment but for producing the school’s Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. In 1937 it was the turn of The Mikado.

I had a good voice and was considered for a place in the chorus but as most came from the Main School they were somewhat taller than me. The Headmaster played Pooh Bah (Lord High everything else) and Mr Soderberg played The Mikado. I ended up in the side chorus, off stage, but still remember some of the songs 82 years later!

My Form Master in 4B was Arthur Davies-Jones, the Senior English Master. You will know his name as he wrote the words of the

school song Debtors, first performed, I think, on Speech Day in 1938. The music was by Arthur Baynon one of our music masters.

I cannot leave this list of memorable masters without mentioning ‘Moose’ Maddock our physics master, one of my few good subjects. Several times I was rewarded with a jar of honey from his beehives.

How did your role with MI6 at Bletchley Park come about?

We lived in Greenhill Avenue in Caterham and our house was damaged in the air-raid on Kenley Airfield. The end of one of its runways was only two miles away. However, in spite of attempts to camouflage the airfield – they also targeted the roundabout leading to the newly opened Caterham by-pass. Our roof suffered from the bombs that missed the target and shrapnel.

I remember Croydon and Biggin Hill airfields were also near and part of the Battle of Britain was fought overhead. Biggin Hill was the busiest airfield during the Battle of Britain.

My mother had been a nurse in the mobile Red Cross first aid unit based in Kenley and had been called out to the raid earlier in the week on Croydon airfield. She would not say much about it but clearly it had been a most unpleasant experience.

Father had joined MI6 in the May/June of 1940 and was working for them at Whaddon Hall, the headquarters of MI6 Section VIII (Communications). It is some five miles west of Bletchley Park and handled all its outgoing Ultra. (The term Ultra was used to convey the status of the intelligence which was considered to be above Top Secret. It consisted of information that was gathered by breaking encrypted radio communications.) So mother packed cases for us and off we went to join father in Buckinghamshire.

With the numbers at Bletchley Park growing daily in 1940 we were lucky to get a three-bedroom flat in Stony Stratford, nine miles north of Bletchley. There was no public school nearer than Stowe and that was ten miles away without a direct bus or train service. So my late younger brother Trevor (also an Old Caterhamian) and I started at nearby Wolverton Grammar School.

One of my hobbies was model making, and my proud father took 

Below: Research and Development rooms at Whaddon Hall

SLUs (Signals Liaison Units) being fitted out for use on and after D Day. Geoffrey is fourth from right but most of the others are not in MI6 (Section VIII), rather Army wireless operators who will man them.

Above: Geoffrey and the team of mobile engineers Right: Motor Gun Boat

one of my models of the Battleship HMS Nelson to Whaddon Hall to show his colleagues. Lieutenant Commander Percy Cooper of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who was in charge of the MI6 department, making wireless sets for MI6 secret agents, suggested that if at some time I would like to work in his department, it could be arranged.

At the time my scholastic career was going nowhere and I asked my father if I could finish school and take up the offer. In 1943 I went with him to see Mr Morgan, the Headmaster, he agreed with my own assessment and so I joined MI6 (Section VIII) [Secret Intelligence Service Communications] aged only 17, the youngest member of MI6.

After a period in the workshops, I was offered the ‘job of a lifetime’ and joined a small mobile seven-man team that installed secret wireless kit in aircraft, ships, cars, wireless vans and converted ambulances. We worked on aircraft on several airfields going on tests and later on operations with our ascension – air to agent wireless. The operations were in B-25 Mitchells from RAF Hartford Bridge (now called Blackbushe) in Surrey.

Another of my favourite tasks was with the 15th MGB (motor gun boat) Flotilla based in Dartmouth. I had some fairly hairy experiences in the Channel once exacerbated by trying to avoid a floating German mine near the notoriously treacherous rocky coast of Brittany in total darkness.

Perhaps our largest undertaking was to fit out the Mobile SLUs (Signals Liaison Units) to carry Ultra from our wireless station in Whaddon Village out to the Army Commanders on and after D-Day. For example for General Bradley’s 1st US Army, George Patton’s 3rd US Army and five or six others. For the British Generals – like Dempsey’s 21st Army Group and the Canadian Army under General Crerar.

Have you kept in touch with your colleagues from MI6?

I enjoyed a recent celebration at Hurley to mark the village’s connection with the OSS (now CIA) wartime wireless station and there are annual reunions for Bletchley Park veterans. To think that there were over 10,000 working in shifts there, including my mother as a nurse – let alone all the thousands more in the Y Service and MI6 (Section VIII).

I started writing newsletters about our work in 1997 and the list of recipients is now in many hundreds. To begin with they were to the few men I knew, but quickly word spread that I was going to write a book about our work so now the newsletters go out to many hundreds and some clubs in the US syndicate

I had some fairly hairy experiences in the Channel once exacerbated by trying to avoid a floating German mine near the notoriously treacherous rocky coast of Brittany in total darkness.

them, so I have no idea how many readers they have.

I am also on the Bletchley Park Historical Advisory Group and receive enquires of all kinds.

What did you do after the war?

While mother was working as a nurse in the clinic at Bletchley Park, she inherited the bathroom business in Chelsea founded by her grandfather in 1876. After the war she moved into the mansion flat above its showrooms and father left MI6 to join her.

I came home in 1947 from the SIS station in Singapore and my parents prevailed upon me to join them. The station in Whaddon Village was closing and moving to Hanslope some twelve miles away so I had no problem in leaving – after a lecture about security!

So I joined the family business that rapidly expanded and in turn my sons joined us – the fifth generation. Sadly, father died in 1956 aged only 58, so I took over aged 30. We continued to expand and eventually had a chain of showrooms.

In the 1950s I purchased an acre of land on the corner of Harestone Hill and Grange Road in Caterham. I designed and built two bungalows one for my family and the second for mother, father and brothers.

The Pidgeon family are a Caterham dynasty, how did this come about?

Trevor and I were at Caterham before World War II and I wanted my sons to also learn the things that the School imparted but hopefully do better scholastically than their father! So in due time Laurence and then John were at the school.

What did Caterham ‘impart?’ I feel it is important for readers to know how I benefited from my four years at the school. I dislike saying ‘Je ne sais quois’ but here it is the best way I can express something that you gain from Caterham. Is it confidence – verve – fire – self-belief – I am not sure, but when you go out into the world you find all those qualities are applicable.

You have generously founded the Pidgeon Prize for Literature at Caterham School, what was the inspiration for this?

My late younger brother Trevor was quite brilliant – a First Class degree in French and German after studying at the Sorbonne. Two years National Service as a Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps and then invited to join SIS where he stayed for 33 years. He was their leading Sinologist and linguist and was at the very top of the organisation.

On retirement he started on his life ambition to write the definitive book on the development of the tank in World War I. That led to other books about the Somme and he was a leading member of the Western Front Association.

For my part The Secret Wireless War launched at Bletchley Park has been a success and still sells, even recently in Australia. I wrote a second book about Edgar Harrison a senior colleague in MI6 (Section VIII) who was Winston Churchill’s Ultra wireless operator on many occasions. Next came Busted Flush – The Thomas Crapper Myth and My Families Five Generations in the Bathroom Industry. This was launched at the Science Museum in 2014.

So I felt I wanted to say thank you Caterham for – ‘Je ne sais quoi’ – hence the Pidgeon Prize for Literature.

The school has changed vastly since my day and apart from the great increase in numbers, merging with Eothen School was a super concept. Making Caterham co-educational brought it into the real world. Perhaps the other big change is the wide ethnicity that has so improved the School. 

Bletchley Park Veterans Reunion 2019 © Will Amlot, courtesy Bletchley Park Trust