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September 04 2009
THE HISTORIC CHURCHES CYCLE RIDE & GB2CCC
THE HISTORIC CHURCHES CYCLE RIDE, SATURDAY 12TH SEPTEMBER 2009
WHAT’S THE BIKE-RIDE STORY TO DO WITH RADIO?
1. Half a dozen Bedford cyclists have discovered that there is gold in the city of Oxford so they are setting out by bike at 8 o clock on Saturday morning to find it in Oxford. It’s a long trek at 8 miles an hour, so they will take lunch, half way, with a friend at Bletchley Park, with Enigmatic connections.
2. Bedford had the BBC as refugees during the Second World War; they also had half a dozen country houses with most of the special radio stations receiving code for box 25 and hut 6 at Bletchley. I bet you old guys never knew this till recently.. Right under your noses. Anyway these cyclist are planning to blow the gaff on GCHQ, Bletchley’s new name, and get to Oxford for Tea with the Archdeacon Emeritus.
3. At the end of a hard slog along the Universities Way, (Oxford to Cambridge actually), which is as flat as a Railway, (built on the same lines actually) they will celebrate the success of the Profs and Dons who sat in hut 6 at Bletchley Park cracking codes. Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford which is also a College of the University seems just the place to celebrate the intellectual achievement of breaking the Enigma codes. They will join the Special Amateur Radio Station set up on Oxford’s Broad Walk adjacent to Christ Church, GB2CCC, alias RADIO StRIDE, which provides publicity for the Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust.
4. The Historic Churches Trust has a National fund-raising event every September. The majority of English Counties participate. That is why any one of you can open his front door on Saturday and see a cyclist with a yellow sticker heading for Church. Actually, horses and Shanks’s pony are also permitted, hence the quintessentially English acronym, “StRIDE” for Stride and Ride. Would you believe; Berkshire uses” CROW” for Cycle Ride or Walk! Northumbria has a “Steeple Chase”, but uses cars and motor bikes as well as horses! Without a grant from the County Trust, your local church may one day fall down.
5. Amateur Radio offered up many of its pre-war men to scientific endeavour in 1939. They designed RAF transmitters, radar sets, trained servicemen, they flew missions, they logged German morse code as VI’s, they sailed, flew and fought. Very sadly, many gave their lives. It is fitting to bring together the Cyclists with the Historic Churches and the University with the celebration of great endeavour and the hobby which has nourished a large proportion of the nation’s physicists and engineers with the passion for radio.
6. With the back-drop of the beautiful building, RADIO StRIDE will be welcoming cyclists all day, be conversing with other supporting churches by radio and demonstrating the art of radio to the public. Look for the tent and the aerials as you go down St Aldates Street. Have a go yourself. Yes we can show you how!
7. Some wartime radios will be on static display. See the Lancaster Bomber Radios, see the radio which first detected the German Knickebein beams which sadly guided the Luftwaffe to Coventry.
8. This week when the nation remembers September 1939, be there with the boys, remember what they did. Give thanks.