Notes on Great Uncle Roddy?

Further to my post about my Great Uncle Roddy being a spook, I was struck by the Kim Philby quote about 54 Broadway being “a warren,” which seem like a metaphor for trying to make sense of all the divisions and groups and who headed which one, reported to who and so on. That has been like disappearing down a rabbit hole into labyrinth of warrens. This post may give a sense of that:

Since writing this Mike Chapman has been in touch with more information that has helped make sense of all the various accroymns for organisations, divisions, groups, units and so on, e.g. Secret Intelligence Service being MI6’s official name. I have included his feedback as notes in the comments of my previous post (see here) and also where relevant as links to those notes below. His help with all this is hugely appreciated.

For example, was Roddy part of MI8 and was that MI8c or another group. The follow-up to his Emergency Commission application informs him that he is being called to serve as M.T. Officer, Headquaters Group, Special Signals Unit No 1. Royal Corp of Signals (see Mike Chapman Note 4 in comments of previous post here).

As far a locations go, 54 Broadway would have to be one with the nice little detail from the Wikipedia about the building having brass plaque during WW2 identifying it as the offices of the “Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company.” I have to say I got a little confused about Special Signals Unit No 1 vs the Special Communications Group No. 1 (see here) vs No 1 Special Wireless Group (see here). (see Mike Chapman Note 4 in comments of previous post here for explanation of connection of Whaddon Hall and Bletchley Park).

However, the Imperial War Museum site has a photograph of personnal of the Special Communications Unit No 1 at ‘Windy Ridge,’ and albeit being later in the war that being the base of the Special Operations Group wireless station at Whaddon. That tallies with the anecdote about the where Roddy’s driver worked. With Windy Ridge being another location and his driver being a character, as well as the other driver billited at the farmhouse mentioned along with its owners.

The Packard Car and motorbike below are all details in the storytelling as I try a paint a mental picture of the life of a dead relative and at very dramatic time in world and national history, as well as at the onset of the IT industry that has been the backdrop to what would probably be inaccurately be described as my ‘career’ given the many twist and turns of my working life.

But things have become a bit clearer having found an Open University resource for schools about WW2 activities around Milton Keynes. It includes a section on the Special Communications Unit including how it came into being (see here), the various locations including Windy Ridge and Whaddon Hall, and also a biography of Richard Gambier-Parry who I now think was the Colonel who may have signed ATB Form 2090 for Roddy (see more below). Again, that’s more locations and characters and not least being Gambier-Parry whose Wikipedia entry also gives more detail about how the Special Communication Unit evolved and what it did (see here).

The Open University resource also includes this page about the Radio Security Service (RSS) being established to detect enemy spies in Britain known by the cover of MI8(c). The page also mentions (Col. Lord Sandhurst) Ralph Sheldon who was chauffered by the other of the two drivers who chauffered Roddy, as well as the role of the Radio Society of Great Britain in helping recruit civilian radio amateurs. And the RSS having offices initially in the cells of the vaccant C Block at Wormwood Scrubs, along with the following snippet:

The success of the R.S.S., the fact that it now monitored enemy signals abroad and the fact that some of it’s personnel had managed to decode some of the signals ahead of Bletchley Park, began the moves to bring the R.S.S. under the control of MI8 (c), the S.I.S. communications section and from June, 1941, it duly came under the control of Brigadier Gambier Parry, who decided to militarise the set up.

June 41 is when Roddy is killed in the car accident, hence now thinking it was Gambier-Parry who may have signed ATB Form 2090 for Roddy. I mention all this because the Open University Resource is Rabbit Hole I dived in that gives a glimpse of the labyrinth-like intelligece world Roddy inhabited (See ‘Mike Chapman Note 5’ in comments of previous post here that supports this conjecture about it being Gambier-Parry rather than Lord Sandhurst),

The FoI information is intersting because it shows that he was part of that world, but also frustrating because so much detail is redacted like what he was doing before being recruited as a civilian to MI6, where he was living at the time, what he was actually doing for MI6 and also when called up to the Special Signals Unit No 1. of the Royal Corp of Signals (see ‘Mike Chapman Note 3’ in comments of previous post here with more information about this).

Probate notice on 12 Nov 1941 mentions that he was ‘of 13 Roland-gardens, London S.W.7’ near where I was born and grew up. Maybe that was his home there but also The Times announcement of his death mentions on June 22, 1941 that his parents are ‘now of’ the same address (see here). So was that his address that they moved into after his death or his parents home, and were they still together then.

It would have been interesting to know why he didn’t marry, and what he was up to when he had his accident. Was Lower Beeding just somewhere he was driving through and where was he coming from and going to, e.g. family, friends, lover, an event or official business. And if the latter what was the actual nature of that. So many unanswered questions along with the different parallel universe like scenarios of the possible murder mystery vs more mundane motor accident, which by the way rings truer if driving skills are genetic without naming names. So many questions and not a photograph of what he looked like or those still alive to have shared more about what sounds like him being in the intelligence thick of it during WW2 (see ‘Mike Chapman Note 6’ in comments of previous post here for more information on possible murder mystery).

I think it is worth adding that as fan of Crime Noir and Spy genres then I am drawn like a moth to a mystery flame. That said both car crash and murder are awful ways to go, but the so are being ‘Killed in Action’, ‘On patrol’ or in a PoW Camp i.e., as happened to other relatives during the two world wars and more recent conflict, including my Great Uncle Norman, my nephew Sam and my Great Aunt Valda (all of whose lives were cut far too short). But I am glad there is clarification and that Roddy’s contribution is now also remembered thanks to Mike Chapman’s help with both CWCG and Bletchley Park Roll of Honour sites and not least because of ‘less we forget.’