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My name is Raymond Francis Fautley (Ray) born 3rd May 1922 in Camberwell, London, SE5.
I became a Chartered Engineer in 1955, MIEE (now MIET). Have worked in the radio world the whole of my working life and was never in any of the Armed Forces at any time. Three attempts to join in 1941/2 were foiled by my employer (Marconi's W. T. Co.). This was because my job was considered to be important enough for it to be considered a 'Reserved Occupation'. During the whole of the war period I was living with my parents in North Cheam, near Sutton in Surrey.
In early 1941 I was working at Radio Transmission Equipment (part of the Philips group) in Balham, South London. One day at around noon I was having my lunch in the firm's canteen - when suddenly I wasn't! I was laying on top of a young lady and was covered with plaster dust, broken glass and money. The glass was from the kiosk where the young lady had been taking payment for the lunches. Both of us were coughing and choking because of the dust in the air which also made it difficult to see anything for a few minutes. Both of us appeared to be more or less unhurt, and after helping her up, we started to pick up the scattered money from all around the broken kiosk.
I was told that two draughtsmen had been killed in the Drawing Office just about fifteen feet away from the Canteen on the other side of a brick wall. Luckily for us the wall had remained standing after ther explosion because the bomb had been a small one. Apparently it had been dropped from an aircraft with French military markings, and at that time no air raid warning had been sounded.
After going back to work for the remaining five hours until 6.00pm, the normal finishing time, I got the Underground train home from Clapham to Morden (Northern Line), and by bus to North Cheam in Surrey where I lived with my parents. My mother looked at me and asked what had I been up to - she said that I was filthy! I explained about the bomb and all she said was "Bath!"
When I started to undress I got another fright! My underclothes were soaked in blood - mine! However, a warm bath (only allowed 5" of water) got rid of most of the dirt and dried blood, revealing that I had shallow lesions all over my body, but nothing serious. Trying to wash my back I felt some rough bits, but not being able to see what was there I called my mother in to find out the cause. She said that I had bits of glass sticking out of my back, and did I squeal when she pulled them out! I had worked for five hours without thinking about glass bits sticking in me! All of my clothes, even my shoes, had to be thrown away as they all had shards of glass embedded in them.
Later, in July 1941, I moved to Marconi's W.T.Co., in Hackbridge, near Mitcham in Surrey, about ten miles SW of London. The factory was producing radio receivers and transmitters for use in R.A.F. bomber aircraft. The receivers were known as type R1155 and the transmitters as type T1154. (Both types were sold cheaply after the war in great numbers on the war surplus market. Especially to budding amateur radio operators with very little money!) My work was mainly on the R1155 receivers where I was an electrical tester and faultfinder. My job was to analyse the circuitry using radio test equipment such as signal generators, output meters, oscilloscopes, etc., to determine the reasons for faults. These faults were due either to wires connected incorrectly, wrong value components fitted, comonents which were themselves faulty, or badly soldered connections ('dry joints') which would come apart during vibration testing of the equipment.
These faults were numerous and I had a team of girls working solely on rectifying them. On average some 25 sets passed through my hands each day. At that time the working day was from 8.00am to 6.00pm with a lunch-time break. We worked a six-day week, having Saturday off one week and Sunday off the next.
A colleague of mine at work was Eric Taylor who had been an amateur radio operator (callsign G3FK) before the war. His radio equipment had been impounded by the Post Office immediately after the war started and he was very keen to get 'on the air' again as soon as posible when the war ended. We often chatted about radio during our lunch breaks.
For a short period I was a member of the Home Guard (formerly known as the Local Defence Volunteers or L.V.D. - and many years later as 'Dad's Army'). After a full day's work I didn't take kindly to being marched up and down the street, trying to master the 'Sten' gun (a dreadful thing which was spot-welded together) and being shouted at by a probably well-meaning Corporal or Sergeant. The only satisfaction I had at the time was that I was the only member of the group with a knowledge of Morse code. However, this did not go down well with the NCOs.
One Sunday I had been at home all day, but at night the Home Guard were having an exercise (whatever it was about I never did learn) in which I had to take part. It was, of course, very dark but it also poured with rain continuously all night. So, there I was flat on my stomach crawling through wet grass and muddy puddles with my Sten gun (no bullets) on my back from about 10.00pm until 6.00am Monday morning. I arrived home in a very bad mood which got worse, as by the time I had cleaned up and changed in to dry clothes, it was straight off to work with no breakfast.
On arrival at work, my friend Eric said "What's the matter with you? You look terrible!" Well, I told him in unrepeatable language what was the matter, what I thought about the Home Guard and its exercises, the weather, the blackout and how I had left home with no breakfast. We went to the canteen and I got something to eat while he did the talking. He said that perhaps I could do something for my country which was a bit more comfortable than Home Guard exercises. Straight away I was interested and asked what it was, but all he said was - how good was my Morse? "I don't know" I replied, "I've never really used it". He said that he would bring in a Morse key, an oscillator and a pair of headphones and he would give me a test.
So, during the lunch breaks, for several weeks he sent paragraphs from his daily paper in Morse code to me, and I tried my best to copy what he sent in block capital letters. After a few weeks I found, to my amazement (and I suspect to his!) that I could copy at speeds up to 18, and sometimes 20, words per minute without mistakes. He said "I think you are good enough now" - but he gave me no idea what it was that I was good enough for!
However, a few weeks later (on one of my Saturday off days) there appeared at our front door a bowler hat, rolled up umbrella and a dark suit. A figure of authority - wanting to speak to me alone! My parents were agog! What had I been up to? In those days the front room, or parlour, was used only for special occasions and that was where we talked. The first thing he did was to put a piece of paper on the table, covered it with his hand and said "Sign there!" These days I wouldn't think of signing anything without knowing what is was that I was signing, but I was very intimidated by him, so I signed.
"You have signed the Official Secrets Act and nothing discussed here may be revealed to anyone!" What had I let myself in for? Questions about my parents and grandparents followed and then I was asked about my political opinions. I told him that as I was only 19, and not allowed to vote until I was 21, I was of no particular political persuasion. After a few more questions (which I forget) he started to leave. I asked him to have a word with my parents to ensure them that I was not in any sort of trouble. Then, to my amazement, he said to my parents, "Your son might soon be doing work of very great importance to this country". I thought "What is this all about?" He had given me no idea of where he came from - I could only guess!
The next day (Sunday) I went to work, found my radio friend Eric, and told him that I'd been questioned by a mysterious gent in a dark suit. "I expected somthing like that would happen" was all he would say. So, still none the wiser!
However, a few weeks later I received a parcel through the post which included a letter from "PO Box 25, Barnet, Herts." This was an address that I have NEVER forgotten! The letter informed me that I had been enrolled into the Radio Security Service (RSS) and that I was a Voluntary Interceptor (VI). My work would be General Search and I had been allocated that part of the radio spectrum between 7.0 and 7.5Mc/s (now MHz) to listen for and copy down any Morse code signals that I heard.
There were several pads of "SIGNALS HEARD" log sheets which had columns for writing in the date, time, frequency, callsign and any text sent from any received signals. Also, there were some pads of "MESSAGE FORMS" which had provision for writing any messages, which were mostly copied in the form of groups of five letters in some sort of code.
Some envelopes stamped "SECRET" in red (mysterious!) other slightly larger plain envelopes, gummed labels printed with "PO Box 25, Barnet, Herts." and a whole sheet of postage stamps. What a collection!
My listening period was usually from 8.00pm to 10.00pm on the five weekdays, leaving the weekends for 'dates' with my girl-friend Barbara or family visits. I told Barbara that it would be best if we met only at weekends - my excuse being that I might have to work overtime at short notice at any time. I don't think that went down too well with her at all - but I couldn't tell her why!
Even so, one Wednesday night she called at my house with one of her girlfriends my parents (stupidly) let them in. Well, I don't know who was the most shocked, them or me!
I had been concentrating on writing down the Morse code message I was receiving and certainly never expected to be interrupted by her and her friend! Well I babbled that I was just testing a radio for the firm (Marconi's), but the look on her face indicated that she didn't believe a word of it. She said that I was a spy and that she would call the police! Well I did succeed in calming her down - but what else could I say? (Many, many years later after we were married - around 1980 - I was able to let her know what I'd really been doing.)
Soon, I developed a routine of copying Morse code signals on to the log sheets; writing any coded messages (nearly always in groups of five letters) on the message sheets; putting the sheets in to the 'SECRET' envelope; then the 'SECRET' envelope in to the larger, plain envelope; sticking the 'PO Box 25' label on to the envelope; and finally sticking on the postage stamp. The following morning I would post the envelope on my way to work. A couple of days later the log sheets would be returned to me by post. Some of my reports would be stamped with remarks such as 'SUSPECT', 'MORE PLEASE' and sometimes with a number like 2/12 stamped over the callsign. These numbers meant nothing to me at the time, but I learnt many years later (again after 1980) that they were numbers given to services of 'Box 25' was already aware. For example, '2/' indicated that the service was from 'Bertie' (Berlin).
As an aside, I must include my admiration for the Post Office, for operating their Royal Mail service under extremely difficult conditions. London was being bombed fairly regularly, yet the mail continued to be collected and delivered with much more accuracy and speed than we can expect today!
So, back to the listening!
During the first few weeks of listening, soon after I had received my pads of log sheets, etc., I began to notice that there were some stations that seemed to be always transmitting, using the same callsigns, using the same frequencies and at the same operating times. One of these stations was Reuters press service. Machine sent Morse at around 18 words per minute - a delight to copy! Although copy of the service was not required as it was very well known at Box 25, it did provide a means of frequency calibration for my home-built receiver.
There were some other stations, however, the Box 25 was very interested in, viz., stations using three letter callsigns (such as "DFY de GRP") that I, with many other VIs had logged. The used procedures that were very similar to those used by amateur radio operators, such as the use of "73" ("best wishes") at the end of transmission folloed by "gb" ("goodbye"). I could only hear one end of these type transmissions as the reply would be on a different (and to me, unknown) frequency. Many of these signals were very weak, fading into the noise level at times. The fading indicated to me that the signals were originating from hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away.
Apparently (as I found out many years later) the Message Forms which I had filled in with the encoded messages were sent by dispatch rider from Barnet to to a place called Bletchley Park, in Buckinghamshire. This was where the brilliant group of code-breakers, mathematicians and linguists worked to decode the intercepted signals provided by VIs and by the official service intercept stations called the "Y" Service.
At Bletchley Park, the network of stations using three letter callsigns was found to be that of the German Secret Service and the Gestapo, operating from Germany to the German Embassies around the world.
For many years after the war ended, the VIs were not able to disclose what they had been doing as the work was under the cover of the "Official Secrets Act". During 1979 the BBC made a half-hour documentary programme called "The Secret Listeners". It was presented by Renee Cutforth and made by BBC 'Look East' in Norwich. As I understand it, the programme was only transmitted once, by BBC2 during 1980. It was in this programme that 'Voluntary Interceptors' were first mentioned and the presenter gave the viewers (including the VIs, who were as much in the dark as anybody) a few clues as to what they had really been doing when copying down all that Morse code stuff. I have also learnt recently that the Radio Security Service was also known as 'MI8c', a part of MI5.
Many books and documentary programmes have appeared during the last 25 years about the work of the Bletchley Park team, and Winston Churchill said of B.P. that it was "The goose that laid the golden eggs - but never cackled". By that he meant that B.P. was so secret that nothing was known of its existence by anyone - excepting by those who worked there and the 'top brass' - and they never revealed anything.
The nearest that the VIs got to being discovered was in a "Daily Mirror" contribution - "By a Special Correspodent - entitled "SPIES TAP NAZI CODE". The issue was dated Friday, February 14th, 1941 and referred to 'hush-hush' men who listened to Morse code messages. Very embarrassing for the Radio Security Service! (I have an original copy of that issue of the Daily Mirror.)
In recent years former VIs, members of the Royal Signals who served in the RSS and others (such as the Special Communications Units - 'SCUs') have met together annually for RSS Reunions at Bletchley Park. These reunions are held at the end of April or the beginning of May each year.
A few of those involved during the war (who are still around) and hold amateur transmitting licences meet together by radio on Monday and Friday mornings to remember old times.
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