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from telegrams...
...to eGrams
A POTTED HISTORY OF
FCO COMMUNICATIONS
Over the years of my time in Comcen management I became aware that
there was no 'record' written down about the birth and life of the
Comcen, nor yet a reasonably coherent account of how Telegrams
evolved and came to be such an important part of the working life of the
FCO. I have therefore tried to produce a 'first' record - before my time
runs out and I retire in November 2004. It has been an extremely
interesting process, hooking up as much relevant information as possible
and trying to pat it all into a sensible sort of shape. I hope I have
achieved at least some of what I set out to do.
I am indebted to Kate Crowe (PDD) and Records and Historical
Department (RHD) for a wealth of historical notes about FCO telegrams
in general and to Library and Information Services (LIS) for the freedom
to browse through historical photographs and select those for inclusion in
this booklet. I have borrowed lines and paragraphs by the hundredweight in an effort to produce a
document that I hope can inform as well as be 'of some interest'. Without their help and support, this
would be a much less meaningful and interesting document. I am also grateful for input from various
serving and retired members of Cypher and Signal Branch who contributed in many ways, adding their
two penn'orth to a total sum of collected memory.
Any errors contained within are very firmly my own responsibility. I would be grateful for any feedback
that might point out errors or provide deeper understanding so that appropriate updates can be made for
any future reprinting.
W J M Dunningham (Bill)Head of Comcen and Cypher & Signal BranchICT ComcenFCO ServicesForeign and Commonwealth Office16 August 2004
Extracts have been taken from:FCO RECORDS dated August 1991, 1992 and 1993.The Historical Journal dated 1979.From Quills to Computers - Information Technology in the FCO 1782-1992. (LRD)THE FCO - History Notes (Policy, People and Places, 1782-1991) (LRD)Photographs have been provided by FCO Library Services and Comcen records.© Crown copyright. A product of FCO Services. Design and printed byFCO services: Crystal Print.
Foreword
1
Once again in the history of Foreign and
Commonwealth Office communications there is
an inexorable movement towards a period of
fairly major change in the way we do our
business and this has served as a prompt that
perhaps this is one of those moments in time
when we should sit down and record ‘where we
have been’, ‘where we are now’ and perhaps a
short line or two about where the track might
lead for the future. Some facts and figures will
be necessary as building blocks but I will try to
'top off' with something more like a time-lapse
snapshot of the area which the members of
Cypher and Signal Branch will have inhabited
for past couple of decades. Whilst we were not
around for the birth of the Telegram, we were for
part of its heyday – and within a scant few
months, will be there to witness its sad demise
during the Autumn of 2004 as new technology in
the form of eGrams takes over the burden of
conveying FCO instructions, reports and
information via the global email pathways.
With regard to where we have been, Library have
been so kind as to provide us with some
photographs and Kate Crowe of Public
Diplomacy Department (PDD as it was when the
information was requested!) earned our major
thanks by providing some history and
background information we could draw on. One
assumes it was necessary for her to dig around in
those dark and dusty recesses where the history
of much of the office lies quietly sleeping. We
have also spoken to some of our more
‘experienced’ (aged) staff prior to their leaving to
well earned retirement in case they had any
‘historical moments’ of their own to share. Many
of these, whilst being highly entertaining,
actually had little to do with the office – but
could well form a separate book of their own!
Introduction
Cornhill Station where the first telegram arrived
3
4
Where to start? Well, the best place is usually the
beginning, but exactly where was the beginning?
Well, that’s not quite so easy to determine as you
would think; there appears to be no previous
history written of FCO Communications, just the
odd mention here and there in other documents
and the occasional photo. Finding the roots from
whence sprung Cypher & Signal Branch (C &
SB) was never going to be an easy task.
However, deep amongst the roots is evidence that
cyphers were in fairly common usage during the
late 1700’s; we have a copy of one dated 1795
and others during the early and later 1800’s.
Plainly, our roots go pretty deep into the FCO’s
past. It is interesting to note that the office of the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs developed
from the royal household of the middle ages. The
first official mention in the context of foreign
affairs of a King’s Secretary (John Maunsell)
came in 1253. On his appointment to Rome in
1479, John Shirwood became the first resident
English Ambassador. In 1505, John Stile,
appointed by Henry VII as ambassador to Spain,
became the first English ambassador resident at a
secular court. By the reign of Elizabeth I, further
resident ambassadors had been appointed to
Vienna, Venice, France and Constantinople and
the outline of a network of foreign embassies
was thereby established. During 1640, the
Northern and Southern Departments were
created. The chronology goes on to state that in
1782, the Northern Department became the
Foreign Office housed at Cleveland Row, St
James’s. There were further moves to the
Cockpit, Whitehall in 1786 and to Downing
Street and Fludyer Street in 1793. Apparently,
Downing Street and its environs in those days
was a much less salubrious place than the present
From the beginning
An en-clair telegram to be decyphered by Book
5
seat of government being full of public houses
such as the Cat and Bagpipes and Rose and
Crown, livery stables, dressmaking
establishments and cheap lodging houses often
used by Irish and Scottish MPs. In 1801,
Colonial Affairs became the responsibility of the
Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and
the name Colonial Office began to come into
common use.
During those times, the Office would have had
the need to communicate with its outposts to
send instructions and briefings and receive the
latest political news and intelligence as to what
was happening in various countries on a number
of different fronts. In those days, written
communications of course would have been
infrequent, having to pass first by ship and then
overland carried in a pouch – possibly through
potential war zones, prey to attack also by
bandits and warlords. All this may still sound
familiar to those of you who may have served in
certain countries fairly recently! This would have
made adherence to the latest Whitehall policy
and guidance extremely difficult and much
reliance would have been placed upon the Heads
of Mission to conduct their affairs in general
accordance with the last known wishes of
ministers in London.
To set the scene a little, by way of background,
perhaps we should look first at communications
during those earlier years, firstly, prior to the
formation of Cypher and Signal Branch. To help
this process it might be interesting to look a bit
closer at the chronology of the office. How did
the present FCO building come into being? Well
– apparently, in 1839, the Foreign Office and
Colonial Office buildings were condemned as
unfit and unsafe in a Report from a Select
Committee on Public Offices. In 1856, there was
an announcement of an Open Competition for
new offices to be built on a site between
Parliament Street and St James’s Park. In 1858,
George Gilbert Scott was appointed as architect
for the new Foreign Office building but Lord
Palmerston objected to his Gothic design and
instead, opted for the Italian Palladian style you
see today. In 1868, the Foreign Office moved
into the new building. A couple of other
interesting dates to note are:
1902 – The India Office Courtyard was the scene
of Coronation celebrations for King Edward VII
and renamed Durbar Court.
1919 saw the amalgamation of the Foreign
Office and Diplomatic Service.
1925 – the FO Reception Suite was renamed the
Locarno Suite following the signing of the
Locarno Treaty in the largest of the three rooms.
1947 – FO take over the India Office part of the
building (including Durbar Court).
1968 – The FCO was established by the merger
of the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office.
1978 – FCO take over all of the present building
on Home Office removal to Queen Anne’s Gate.
6
So, perhaps we should now take a flavour of
early ‘despatches’, their preparation and how
they were sent, as these would have been the
precursors to telegrams. From its establishment
as a separate ministry in 1782 until the beginning
of the 20th century, the Foreign Office was
indeed ‘a department of scribes’ and the familiar
picture, from Dickensian illustrations, of clerks
standing at tall desks and writing with quill pens
held good until well into the 19th century.
Despatches were frequently dictated by the
Secretary of State to an attendant clerk, who
made a file copy in a large leather-bound register
before sealing and addressing the original for
transmission abroad. Lord Palmerston apparently
made his clerks work very long hours, even on
Sundays, while George Canning was famous for
his ability to dictate to three clerks at once! Quill
pens made by cutting a nib with a ‘pen-knife’
from goose or crow feathers, wore out so quickly
that in 1795 the staff of nine at the Colonial
Office went through 2,000 quills in less than a
year. Metal nibs did not come into common use
until the 1820’s.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the
Foreign Office received and sent despatches by
means of the mail and by Foreign Service
(Queen’s) Messengers. Messengers were used
only for the most secret and important
communications. Other material was cyphered,
or even written in invisible ink and trusted to the
general postal system. Until 1830, one man
collected all outgoing mail from three
government offices and took it all to Lombard
Street Post Office for the 8 pm coach and as he
frequently did not arrive until 7.45, the coach
was often held up (it's unclear whether this
meant 'delayed' or 'at gunpoint'!). Overseas mail
was in turn often delayed by weather conditions
which made the length and timing of sea voyages
impossible to determine. Stricter controls on the
timings of collections were introduced in 1830.
The first distinct organisation of King’s
Messengers for overseas use came in 1772 when
the Secretaries of State for the Northern and
Southern Departments were granted 16 of the 40
King’s Messengers. Their trips were expensive
and dangerous. In 1775, a journey from London
to Paris is recorded as costing £48.10.8, while a
Messenger’s journey to St Petersburg in 1780
cost £459.3.4. There were numerous fatalities in
the line of duty: George Sparrow was robbed of
his despatches and stabbed to death in Sicily in
1807, George Lyell was murdered ‘by
desperadoes’ in Madrid in 1815, while Thomas
Brown died of fatigue brought on by a
continuous journey of 23 days and nights when
he arrived at St Petersburg in 1820.
Members of the Corps worked on a rota system,
and one Messenger, returning from a trip to
Russia and seeing his name at the bottom of the
list had obtained permission from the Chief
Clerk to go on leave in Monte Carlo. He then
received a telegram: ‘Your wife says you are fast
and dirty, return at once, Chief Clerk’. On arrival
at the Office, he found that the telegram, sent on
his wife’s behalf by a friend had been garbled on
transmission. The original text read: ‘You are the
first on duty, return at once, Chief Clerk’!
The Office has had an official Printer since 1800
when a salary of £150 was first paid to James
Harrison. The printers carried out classified work
up to the highest category, not only for the FO
but also for the Cabinet Office, Treasury and
other departments.
Other means of copying existed from the late
18th century to early 20th century such as the
Early despatches
7
letter press and hectograph. The hectograph,
which employed copying ink on a gelatine-filled
tray, was capable of producing many copies and
the memoirs of H J Bruce recall its use in the FO
in the early years of the 20th century. He recalled
that ‘The decyphering of telegrams was
accompanied by a physically dirty job called
"bluing". This meant that the decyphers of
telegrams were written out in indelible copying
ink and pressed onto a gelatine pad. Enough
copies were then taken off for the King, the
Secretary of State, the Cabinet etc. The next job
was to decontaminate one’s hands as far as
possible from the stickiness of the gelatine and
the indelibility of the ink’.
In 1886, the Treasury accepted that the
installation of typewriters represented significant
savings in time and money in that a skilful typist
could do the work of two copy-writers at a third
of their wages. Miss Sophia Fulcher was the first
typist appointed by the Foreign Office in 1889
and she and her later colleagues were at first
described as ‘Lady Typewriters’.
It is interesting to note that the Treasury
recommended the use of the photostat machine,
on grounds of economy, to the FO in 1926, and
by 1947, the Foreign Office Guide stated that ‘a
fully equipped photostat department is
established in the Main Foreign Office Building
and should generally be used for the simple
reproduction of documents in order to avoid
placing a strain on the typing staff.
The “Lady Typewriters”
8
Telegrams: The term Telegraph is derived from
two Greek words: tele meaning afar and graphos
meaning writer. Following the invention of
electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the telegram
system was first used by the Foreign Office in
1852. The first successful Submarine cables were
laid across the Channel in 1850 and the Atlantic
in 1858 (updated between 1866 and 1874 by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s revolutionary iron
ship, The Great Eastern). In December of 1852
the Paris Embassy became the first British
mission abroad to send a telegram to the Foreign
Office, forwarding an announcement from the
Governor of Malta on the arrest of a public
figure. Telegraphic communication with
Florence, Berlin and Vienna followed in 1853. At
this early period, the messages came first to
commercial telegraph offices (the Electric
Telegraph Company or the Submarine Telegraph
Company) and were then delivered to the
Foreign Office. By 1859, cables had been laid
connecting Great Britain with Constantinople
and Suez, and in 1862 it was believed that
150,000 miles of telegraphs were in existence
throughout the
world. Messages
which had taken
months to arrive
could be
transmitted in as
many hours, and
by the end of the
century, in just a
few minutes.
By the end of
the century,
telegraphy was
an essential
form of world-
wide
communication,
and had been the
subject of a
series of
international
conventions
attempting to
govern its use in
times of war and
peace.
The first telegram
Early Book Cypher dated 1795
9
Recognised as being the first telegram - 19 December 1852
10
However, telegraph cables were always liable to
be cut during hostilities, and the possible
disruption of British foreign policy and
commerce was a nightmare never far from the
minds of government officials. In 1911,
therefore, the official government response to
Guglielmo Marconi’s proposal for the
establishment of a chain of high-power wireless
telegraphy stations throughout the British Empire
was remarkably positive. On 19 May 1911, a
committee consisting of representatives of the
Admiralty, War Office, Colonial Office, India
Office, Foreign Office, Post Office and the Board
of Trade, signed a report approving Marconi’s
proposals and advising state ownership of the
new system from the outset. These plans were
implemented and were further developed by the
establishment of the Cable and Wireless
Company in 1928, which fused in one
undertaking all the cable and wireless interests
conducting communications between the various
parts of the British Empire.
This new medium was regarded with suspicion
by Edmund Hammond, then Permanent Under
Secretary at the Foreign Office who told a
Parliamentary Committee in 1858 "No, we do
not have the Electric Telegraph in the office;
provision was made to admit of its coming in, [to
the proposed new Foreign Office building]
because it was right and proper to make it, but I
hope it will never come in". Hammond declared
that it would be ‘a very inconvenient and very
expensive arrangement to have the telegraph
brought into the office’, and when asked if he
favoured telegraphic communication between
Government departments, he replied "No, I
dislike the telegraph very much, because you get
nothing on sufficient record which passes by the
telegraph, and you are very much tempted to
The Electric
Telegraph Company
I dislike the telegraphvery much, because youget nothing onsufficient record whichpasses by thetelegraph, and you arevery much tempted toanswer off-hand pointswhich had much betterbe considered. I thinkthe tendency of thetelegraph is to makeevery person in ahurry, and I do notknow that with ourbusiness it is verydesirable that thatshould be so"
“
”Edmund Hammond,Permanent Under Secretaryat the Foreign Office, 1858
11
answer off-hand points which had much better be
considered. I think the tendency of the telegraph
is to make every person in a hurry, and I do not
know that with our business it is very desirable
that that should be so".
Despite Hammond’s misgivings, a branch of the
Electric Telegraph Company was installed in the
Foreign Office soon afterwards, and by 1861
telegrams were an integral part of the
communications systems connecting the Office
with missions abroad. This would have
effectively been the first FCO Comcen. In 1870,
the General Post Office took over responsibility
for telegraphs from the commercial telegraph
companies. Foreign Office Accounts for the year
1871-2 show that over £4900 was spent on
telegraphs, which was close to the original
estimate prepared by the FO, but which the
Treasury had reduced to £3500. (The shortfall
was compensated by ‘economy…in the conduct
of the Messenger Service’, the costs of which
were reduced from £18,000 to below £16,000).
The telegraphic address PRODROME (from the
Greek prodromos meaning precursor) was
registered in 1884, PRODROME LONDON
being used for diplomatic telegrams to the
Office, and PRODROME followed by the name
of the mission for telegrams from the Office.
This convention was also followed for Telex
answerbacks and remains in force today. The
telegraphic address BREASTRAIL was also
registered in 1884 for consular telegrams.
Telegram distribution by Box to other Government Departments
12
In this early period, telegrams arriving during the
day were delivered to departments like ordinary
post and filed alongside letters and despatches.
The first telegram sent from Florence appears in
the same volume as the corresponding despatch
and enclosure, with a time difference of seven
days between them. By 1878, telegrams were so
frequent that they began to be numbered like
despatches, and for some missions amounted to
several hundreds each year. Until 1906,
telegrams which arrived during the day were
delivered direct to individual departments and
their receipt and despatch was recorded in
departmental diaries or registers. Telegrams
received out of office hours were distributed by
the Resident Clerk. After the establishment of the
General Registry in 1906 telegrams were handled
by the Registry (night-time telegrams continued
to be the responsibility of the Resident Clerks).
From 1914 telegrams and despatches were listed
and numbered in separate annual series. This
would have been the beginning of use of
Telegram Numbers as commonly known now. In
1920 the handling of telegrams was divided
between the Registry (receipt and registration)
and the newly-established King’s Messengers
and Communications Department –
‘Communications Department’ from 1923 –
(decyphering and despatch).
All telegrams were copied in the Distribution
Room of Communications Department and
circulated as required. The more important of the
day’s telegrams and despatches were reproduced
on printed sheets known as daily print sections,
and circulated to the Prince of Wales, to
members of the Cabinet and sometimes to
missions abroad. H J Bruce recalled
that the job of ‘sorting the print’ took
several hours each day.
The first telegrams were sent en clair
and received by the Foreign Office on
commercial telegraph forms, but
certain missions were also able to
send telegrams in cypher from a very
early stage. On 12 July 1853 for
instance, Lord Westmoreland reported
from Vienna that he had received the
secret despatch of 2 July ‘transmitting
a Printed Paper being the key of a
Letter Cypher to be used when I have
occasion to send messages of such a
secret nature as it might not be
expedient should be sent in words by
the Telegraph between Vienna and
London. In reply I beg to inform you
that the necessary care and attention
has been taken so as to give effect to
The War Years
A telegram for decyphering by Book
13
the instructions contained in the abovementioned
dispatch’.
Telegrams sent in cypher were originally
followed by duplicates known as recorders which
were sent through normal channels of
communication, or by extenders, longer
despatches providing more detail on the
instructions sent by telegram. In 1890, recorders
were replaced by paraphrases, so that if
telegrams were intercepted, the cypher would not
be compromised.
The outbreak of war in 1939 imposed enormous
pressure on Communications Department, and
although it was recognised that the standard of
proficiency was high and its cyphering speed far
ahead of any other government department, there
were complaints of congestion and delay, and of
carelessness in the checking and distribution of
telegrams. While the greatly increased volume of
telegrams was a major contributory factor,
management, equipment and accommodation
were also to blame. Although the cyphering
branch had taken over two rooms of the Locarno
Suite, it was so far from the rest of
Communications Department that delays ensued
and supervision was limited. Major reforms,
including the introduction of ‘modern
installations and appliances, on an appropriate
but not extravagant scale’ were recommended
and carried out during the war.
Duplicating copies of Telegrams
14
During the post-war austerity period, there were
frequent requests for economy in the use of
telegrams. In 1950, 225 staff (examiners,
cypherers, teleprinter operators etc) were
engaged in outward despatch procedures at the
Foreign Office, and another 1-200 abroad. A
one-page telegram of 350-400 words then took
between 40 minutes to 2 hours to encypher and
cost £25 to transmit to Lima, and just over £3 to
Cairo. In view of all this (and the expense and
danger of transcontinental telephone lines)
greater use of the Bag Service was encouraged.
A wide range of posts also had fast non-
confidential bags for material graded Restricted
and below. Brevity was also encouraged.
Despite the reservations of such conservative
officials as Edmund Hammond, the telegraph
became a standard means of diplomatic
communications.
Telephones: The first telephone was installed in
the Foreign Office between 1898 and 1899 by
the National Telephone Company, the number
being 415 on the Westminster exchange. In 1902
this changed to Westminster 211 for the Office,
with a separate line on Westminster 210 for the
Private Office. In January 1906 the Treasury
sanctioned the ‘installation of a system of
telephonic
communications in the
Foreign Office’ at an
estimated cost of £390.
The employment of ‘a
female Switch Clerk’ at
the usual rate of wages
was also approved in
return for the abolition
of a Home Service
Messenger slot as soon
as a vacancy occurred.
The installation was
carried out by the Post
Office and was further
extended in 1907 so
that the FO had its own
private branch
exchange (PBX) which
by July 1909 could be
accessed through
calling Victoria 22 or
490.
Telex: In 1932, Post
Office Telephones
Post war years
Decyphering telegrams in Book cypher
15
informed the FO of a newly introduced service
called ‘Telex’ which was a form of ‘typewriting
over telephone wires’. A demonstration was
offered, but the Chief Clerk refused it in a
manner reminiscent of Edmund Hammond,
saying ‘that it does not appear that this service
would be suitable for introduction into the
Foreign Office’. On 14 May 1940, however, the
BBC Teleprinter Distribution system linked the
Foreign Office with the Ministry of Information,
and four years later, internal communications in
the Office were boosted by the installation of a
Pneumatic Tube system some parts of which
remain in use today.
Facsimile made its debut in the Office during the
1980s – both unclassified and classified. During
the mid-eighties, room WH124 housed the
Teleletter operation, the first Communications
Operations Department (COD) unclassified fax
and the classified Mufax (wet paper!) operation
to posts abroad. At UKREP Brussels, during
1989, Comms section were handling about 200
pages of unclassified fax material per day. Two
years later, this had grown to 2,000 pages per
day! This rapid growth was reflected in many
other areas of the Office.
COMCEN - when sited in the Locarno Suite
16
HF radio: After the occupation of France in
1940, the Government asked the armed forces to
establish communications with remaining allies
and agents in Europe. This gave rise to a global,
military communications network using High
Frequency (HF) radio and morse code, which
operated from Hanslope Park. Following the
takeover of this network by the newly
established Diplomatic Wireless Service in 1947,
it was expanded, and the flow of classified traffic
was considerably increased by the introduction
of a basic machine cypher in the 1950s.
PICCOLO: Foreign Office communications were
revolutionised by the development in 1963 of a
teleprinter-based HF radio system called
PICCOLO (to replace labour-intensive morse
code), and by the provision in 1964 of on-line
cypher protection for plain text during
transmission (which speeded up the process of
encryption and decryption). The Diplomatic
Wireless Service was absorbed by the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office in 1973, as part of its
new Communications Division.
Computer based messaging system: The first
major computer-based
communications systems
were installed in 1986-7
(the Comcen Message
Switch) to provide a fully
operational Message
Handling System from
August 1987.
Communications and
Information Technology
functions of the FCO were
brought together in
January 1990 to form
Information Systems
Division. The latest re-
brigading sees the
Comcen operation as part
of Information
Communications
Technology Group, one of
the groups forming FCO
Services, the service
provider portion of the
office.
Thanks to the Library, I
have been able to put my
hands on some early
Cypher & Signal Branch
1950 onwards
Noreen cypher machine
17
photos (most from April 1941), which clearly
show ‘communications department’ at work,
much of it being work we all would clearly
remember as doing during our tenure.
Cypher and Signal Branch was actually born in
1951. The grades were established roughly
alongside the HCS grades, with Cypher Officers
(now TCOs) midway between AO and EO,
Cypher Supervisors at EO, Cypher
Superintendents at HEO and Senior Cypher
Superintendents at SEO. Those in higher grades
conformed to HCS grades. The Fifties were a
time of moving more and more into the use of
Telex and teleprinter links via the occasional
private wire. Extensive use of Book Cypher and
the earlier machine systems such as
ROCKEX/ERIC/NOREEN. All systems were
offline and manual intensive relying much on the
skill of the communications staff for the speed in
which telegrams passed from originator to
recipients.
The nineteen fifties and sixties were an
extremely formative time for the Comcen with a
huge influx of staff, mostly during the sixties,
predominately from the military, comprising such
well known names as Eddie Jarman, Laurie
Walters, Harry Ashton, Derek Carroll, Dickie
Larcombe, Derek Hardy, Pete James, Alf
Shackleford, Pete Shaw, Den Glassett, Dave
Eaton, Phil Wade, Ron Froud, Johnnie Crossland,
Ian Sutton, Dickie Dawson and Chris Webb –
and many more - we could easily fill a page
rather than a paragraph! Some such as Ken Stride
arrived following the closure of the LTS (London
Telecommunications Service).
The following is an interesting narrativeinsight from Denis Glassett:
"In 1962 I was based at the NATO base at
Northwood in Middlesex. I had made up my
mind not to renew my engagement and was
leaving the Royal Navy to get married.
I wrote to several prospective employers and
eventually, after two intimidating interviews
(what books do you read? what newspaper do
you read? what are your views on so and so? I
was offered employment by the Foreign Office
starting on 31 December 1962 as a Cypher
Officer, (based in London) administered by the
Diplomatic Wireless Service(DWS)which was
based at Hanslope Park in those days.
I can remember thinking to myself after I had got
the job ‘the Foreign Office is going to be very
grand’ and although it seemed so during my
interviews I was later to learn otherwise over the
coming months.
The winter of 1962 was pretty grim; lots of snow
and ice and we new recruits gathered in the
office to be shuttled over to Queen Anne’s
Mansions in Petty France to begin our Book
Cypher courses (3 weeks)- the site of the present
Home Office.
Rockex cypher machine
18
The head of the training school was Pat Leslie avery able and talented lady who used tonominate one or other of us as ‘A Noddy’ if wedid not understand what she was saying. Anywayall 4 of us passed the course and went across toRoom 8 in the FO to be integrated into a shiftdealing with the day to day work of the Office.We worked in pairs and the new boys were put towork with the more experienced CypherOfficers.
I couldn’t believe what a filthy place The Officewas. Room 8 was exceptionally grimy because itwas occupied around the clock. Furthermore itwas all so formal; Mr this and Mr that. The Headof Shift (DS Grade 7) would walk round saying‘Please do not wear that tie again in the office or‘ a roll neck is acceptable on night duty but noton the day duties between Monday andSaturday’!
I hated it at first, but I felt I had to stick to it andit grew on me. I enjoyed the work and I knewthat I had come into the FO at a time when itmust expand and improve its communications.
In those days there was a Telex Room in Room7. We encrypted the telegrams in Room 8 and theTelex Operators sent them. The main routes wereCable and Wireless/Telex and the London TrafficCentre(LTC) based in Stamford Street.
All Embassies were required to register thetelegraphic address Prodrome and ConsulatesBritain. If we had to revert to C&W those werethe recognised cable addresses. The last post Iinstructed to register the Britain address was theConsulate in Shanghai when it opened in I thinkthe early 90’s.
In the early 60’s Book Cypher (M55 Basic Book)was the primary system to most posts overseas.A telegram was encrypted in the basic book and
then subtracted (without carrying) in a one timepad. It was slow and labour intensive but fullysecure. We also used ‘R Code’ and ‘GTC’(Government Telegraph Code) which gavelimited telegraphic protection to e.gPeoples/companies names. We also used amachine system called ROCKEX to a handful ofposts.
I can remember being in Doha to install a systemcalled NOREEN and train the staff in 1968 andthe Deputy Political Advisor rushing in with atelex message which had an encryption in themiddle of it. The Grade 10 didn’t understand itbut I recognised it as GTC. When I asked himwhere his GTC was he didn’t know but I found itkeeping the Registry door open!
In the late 1960s NOREEN replaced BookCypher as the main line cypher. It wascompatible with ROCKEX but was not the mostuser friendly piece of equipment. It ran onbatteries and there was always the prevailingsmell of sulphuric acid when we arrived in theMission in the morning. I used to get so manyholes in my shirts those days!
The FO amalgamated with the CommonwealthRelations Office in about 1965 and we inheritedtheir crypto system called TYPEX which wecontinued to use to Commonwealth Posts untilthe last TYPEX was dumped offshore in theearly 70s in Port Stanley. I had used the systemin the RN in the early 50’s so it was really anantiquated system (there is one on show adjacentto the Comcen door in the main building).
The Office also amalgamated with the ColonialOffice in the late 60’s and they brought theirBasic Book Cypher (Col E) with them! However,we eventually reduced the number of differentcyphers that we were using and put everyone onthe same system: NOREEN.
Recollections
19
Over a very long number of years we eventually
came to ‘EDUCATOR’ in the mid 1990s and
everything changed for the better. I suppose by
now it is just a question of encrypted email.
Looking back I like to think that me and my
mostly ex-RN colleagues shaped the FCO
communications and got it to the way it is now, a
very efficient system and second to none.
Denis Glassett FCO 1962-1998
From the mid-60’s to 1970, the importance of
creating a secure communications network was
seen as extremely important and a great deal of
resources were put into expanding the use of
professional communicators both at home and
abroad. The Communications functions were
built into various offices such as K7 (Telex
Room) and K8 (Machine Room) and the Locarno
Suite Upper Rooms 7 and 8 housing the
ROCKEX and Book Cypher operations, with
Telegram Distribution Section (TDS) taking up
Portacabin space in Durbar Court.
Outgoing telegrams were received in handwritten
blue draft form and processed by Telegram
Enumerators, offline encyphered where
necessary and despatched via appropriate means
– often as telegrams (or cables) via Cable and
Wireless. A copy would be passed to Telegram
Distribution Selectors for retyping, copying and
internal distribution. Incoming telegrams would
be decyphered, copies prepared for all other
addressees in the appropriate cypher system and
despatched over the correct system, and a copy
passed to TDS for distribution. The principles of
how the section functioned then were pretty
much the same as now – except the work was all
achieved with a far higher element of manual
input than now and the cypher processes were
very much slower. Apparently, a huge wheel
linking lower and upper rooms 8 constantly
rotated carrying messages up and down.
Whenever the wheel jammed, it was necessary
for someone fairly agile to climb up and retrieve
whatever messages were en-route at the time,
and I understand Harry Ashton was one of the
best at this. Being aware of how high the ceilings
are in the office I imagine it would take a fair
amount of courage as well as climbing expertise
to tackle such a task! But being of Welsh
heritage, perhaps Harry had lots of climbing
practice on the Black Mountains or thereabouts
as a youngster!
Telegram Enumerators
20
About that time, the use of specialist
communicators was expanded abroad so that the
radio network spanning out from the aerial farm
at the Central Receiving Station (CRS) Hanslope
Park was able to join many other posts to the
FCO communications network. At the other
major posts with whom we had dedicated links
via BT such as Washington, New York, Brussels,
Hong Kong, Paris etc communications staff was
boosted to deal with the high input/output of
telegram traffic. At the radio posts, DSC
communicators received and sent their telegrams
using a range of systems including PICCOLO
and associated cypher devices. John Mitchell
tells some good stories from those days - such as
-"In days of yore when telegram traffic was
passed between Diplomatic Posts and Hanslope
Park CRS using morse code, the night watch
made ‘long playing two unit tapes’ so they could
call stations in the morning, switch on and leave
running, as there were more stations to work than
operators. Every so often a tape would be
stopped and the distant operator asked if all was
OK. On one occasion, the Hanslope operator
asked the distant station if all was ‘OK’ and
received the answer: "Am only getting dots".
Quick as a flash, the reply was made "OK – will
send dashes later" and the machine was switched
back on!
About the same period, Moscow was considered
to be the busiest Post and demanded that two
morse circuits be operated simultaneously to
alleviate traffic build up. These circuits which
were situated side by side were known as first
operator and second operator. One afternoon, the
second operator at the Hanslope end lit his pipe
and threw, what he thought was an extinguished
A new home for Comcen
HM The Queen’s visit to the FCO, December 1982
21
match, into the wastepaper bin containing carbon
paper, and it caught fire. The Hanslope first
operator spotted this and sent a ditty to the first
operator Moscow saying "Please ask your second
operator to inform my second operator that his
trousers are on fire". When this message was
passed to the Hanslope second operator a very
stunned and surprised young man quickly sprung
into action to douse the flames!
The early 1980’s saw the completion of the
purpose built Comcen (WH135) with all of the
Communications Operations Department
functions being brought into the Whitehall
Ground floor area. Shortly after the re-
organisation, on Wednesday 15 December 1982,
HM The Queen visited the FCO and as part of
the visit toured the new Comcen and Telegram
Distribution areas. We were fortunate that Alan
Harney who was present on the day, had retained
his copy of the visit itinerary so have been able
to add the pertinent pages for your interest. HM
The Queen was accompanied by Francis Pym the
Foreign Secretary. At this stage, the Message
Handling System computer was not completely
built – all systems were manual. The
Unclassified Area was dominated by Telex
machines and staff will all remember the sheer
noise of working there, along with always being
up to your knees in tape and paper! F and G arms
were constantly on the go sending and receiving
telegrams to and from Hanslope Park for the
radio posts. Long Player tapes were compiled for
the larger posts ready for when they came in at
the beginning of their working day. The top end
of the Comcen housed the Classified Telex
systems (Alvis) which was also very noisy
(T100s and T1000s) and constantly busy – and
the pain of sticking hundreds of little pins into
holes to make up the cypher ‘boxes’ will last in
our memories forever.
For outgoing telegrams, we had the Telegram
Enumerators applying telegram numbers. Some
telegrams followed the official draft form and
were input to an early Optical Character Reader
which also produced the necessary paper tapes.
Some were in blue draft form and had to be
typed up to produce a page copy and tape. The
Telegram (Distribution) Selectors led by a grade
7 diplomatic officer plus a couple of grade 9s
and some Comcen staff were responsible for
HM The Queen’s visit to the FCO, December 1982
22
applying distributions to telegrams on an ad-hoc
basis but following laid down and well practised
guidelines.
Telegrams were passed from Comcen to the
Boxroom for distribution. The Boxroom had
been sited in Durbar Court in Portacabins
through the war years and beyond conveniently
sited close to the Comcen offices of that time,
rooms W7 and W8 and other offices in the old
India Office area plus the Locarno Suite. When
the Comcen operation moved into its (new)
purpose built building during the early 80's,
Telegram Distribution Section (TDS) were
moved into a new Boxroom in WH112, again
close to the Comcen operation. Telegram Copiers
were sited in the room next to the Boxroom, with
access through a hatchway. Telegram Copiers
later became Crystal Print with a much wider
remit for printing than just telegrams. The
Boxroom consisted mainly of 3 very long tables
on which were assembled racks of Black
lockable boxes for each department and senior
user. Copies of printed telegrams would be
placed in the boxes throughout the day and night
- the work never stopped. Three times a day, the
boxes would be locked and passed up the
internal lift system to the appropriate floors
where Porters would wheel them around on
trolleys to the appropriate offices. Once we
moved over fully to electronic telegrams
distribution, the Boxroom became the FCO
créche; it can be slightly disconcerting walking
past there and listening to the sounds of
youngsters at play! Not exactly the sounds
visitors to the Office might expect to hear when
walking the 'corridors of power'!
Also the early ‘eighties’ saw the putting together
of the computer systems (Message Handling
System - MHS) that would see FCO
communications right through until 2004. During
The first electronic
Message Handling System
Distribution Ferranti Computer
Craning in Telegram System Computers
23
1983, Rod Fry, Dave Eaton, Ian Sutton and Betty
Edwards commenced training to be Trainers –
which involved their going to Manchester to
actually get to grips with the kit and produce the
necessary workpractices etc. The Ferranti MHS
comprised of a suite of computers to handle the
reception and onward routing of telegrams -
linked to another suite of computers (Message
Distribution System – MDS and Message
Introduction System – MIS) to handle
distribution of telegrams in paper copy form
around the office and to Other Government
Departments (OGDs) – and to process outgoing
telegrams prior to forwarding them on for
transmission to addressees and for internal
distribution. Each suite had the computing power
of just 64 megs and although the disk systems
were eventually upgraded from the old spinning
disk systems to solid state emulation technology,
there were few changes necessary to the MHS
simply because the software was so well thought
out and specific to what it was required to do.
Most importantly, the system was built to allow
add-ons to be fairly simple – flexibility in the
future would be important to take onboard
certain leaps in technology as they occurred. The
MHS actually went live during 1986.
Training on using the MHS took place between
1986/7 before it was possible to actually use the
equipment. We therefore learned the operational
commands by verbal instructions with pieces of
paper with a computer screen and various
commands on it, as a training aid! It sounds
archaic, but it definitely worked since I don’t
remember having any problems with the
commands once installed in front of a ‘real’
terminal screen.
Those early years of the MHS were quite
difficult. The links to post were generally
speaking leased lines and data was being
transmitted over them at 50 or 75 bauds. In the
Message Distribution System (MDS), there were
problems with the computer memory allocation
tables and it was possible to ‘send’ a message
from your screen, go and make a cup of coffee
Placing MHS Computers - Alan Ward (Firecrest) in foreground
24
and it would return to your screen shortly after
you returned to your seat! However, like all
other problems, this was eventually sorted and
after passing the Barrier Examination for
distribution, we all gradually became used to our
new duties and the systems settled down. The
majority of work in the Unclassified Area (UCA)
was handled by two small computers called
Ferranti Telex Managers which were connected
directly to the MHS. Whilst the Classified Telex
systems continued to be used, at least it was
possible to produce the paper tapes of their
queuing traffic automatically from the Message
Switch (MS) and input any messages from post.
The MHS had actually subsumed a number of
what had previously been ‘outside’ functions
such as Telegram Enumerators and Distribution
Selectors. There was room on the MDS system
for standard Collective Distribution Lists and
within the first couple of years at least 30 were in
use. Seven years later, this had grown to about
300.
Outgoing telegrams passed through astandardised procedure whereby they were typedonto a pink OCR form and input into the OCRwhich relayed the telegram into the MessageIntroduction System (MIS). It could then beprocessed quickly with one copy being sentautomatically to the MS for transmission to postsand another copy sent to the MDS for
Douglas Hurd, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, visiting Comcen
The first electronic
Message Handling System
25
distribution around the FCO and WhitehallOGDs.
The lifeblood of the FCO is information -
flowing through the telecommunications veins to
and from its many posts worldwide. At the heart
of it, the MHS, pumping merrily away day and
night, seven days a week (including public
holidays!). From the mid-eighties, for perhaps
the first time, the communications operation had
been pulled into a really cohesive and
standardised effort enabling the office and wider
Whitehall to be properly ‘informed’ whenever
they attended meetings with their counterparts
either at home or abroad. The now fairly ancient
MHS still sits there as of early 2004, still doing
the job for which it was designed, efficiently and
with very few technical problems. Its continuing
presence remains as a tribute to those involved in
configuring it to do the work required of it by the
FCO – and ensuring the flexibility of being able
to upgrade it as new demands were placed on the
Comcen. It will be decommissioned once the
new eGram system takes over from telegrams as
the new 'carrier' of corporate reporting
documents - during Autumn 2004.
During the sixties, TCO specialist
communicators (then known as Cypher Officers),
apart from working in the Comcen environment,
were eligible to take up certain postings abroad
such as UKREP EC Brussels, NATO Brussels,
Paris, Bonn, Washington, New York and Hong
Kong on approximately 3 year tours. DSCs
working out of the CRS Hanslope Park went on
postings to wherever there was a requirement for
a radio link – and this could be large posts like
Moscow or the many small posts in for example
Africa. All of these communicators were forming
important links in the chain required for
dissemination of FCO foreign policy worldwide.
Almost all of these postings were recalled as
excellent experiences both professionally and
socially; personal links were forged with
individuals and families of both diplomatic and
communications staff, many of which have lasted
for the better part of a lifetime.
The prime systems used to attain secure
transmission of telegrams around this time
involved very wide use of Book Cypher and
One-time pads. The mechanics of these systems
were somewhat complex as many will remember
and not best carried out in the middle of the
night! However, staff both at home and abroad
became so proficient that they found themselves
actually remembering many of the book groups
in common usage. The problems tended to come
with digits becoming transposed during the
encryption process - leaving the decipherers to
figure out what may have occurred in the original
process so they could achieve a decrypt! Great
fun! Other systems in use were the early
machines, Alvis, Noreen and Rockex/Eric - then
Topic, used mainly in the off-line mode.
Pete James and Frank Francis, DSO days
26
This is probably a good time to fit in some
'memories' from the other side of the desk
provided by John Rice, Head of Personnel
Security (SSU):
"John Emerson was certainly a stalwart of theearly Cypher school. He was my best man at ourwedding in the Caribbean. Us Grade 10scertainly remember the infamous Pat Leslie(Head of Cypher Training School). We feared herand it would be made very clear to us if we werea minute late or talked in class. However,looking back her schoolmarm tactics did help usto remember the dreaded one time pad.
I remember 10 years on from my book trainingmy last attempt at book cypher was in theCaribbean trying to remember whether to add orsubtract when the Governor's wife (of the
Territory) came into the office and asked if Icould zip up her dress, which did not have a lotunderneath. It fair ruined the mental arithmatic!
Earlier in this booklet, Denis Glassett mentionsinstalling and training staff in Doha on Noreen. Iwas Chargé in 1991 during the first Gulf war andprobably the last one to use the machine Denisinstalled. Our Topic broke down with all of theflash traffic and the back-up was Noreen. TheGrade 10 hadn't got a clue and I was the onlyone in the mission who could get the thingworking (20 years after the Cypher Schooltraining). I persevered for two telegrams and thatwas it. Two months later the TMO dismantledthe machine and after stripping out some gearsand bearings, I dumped the chassis way out inthe Gulf from my little Mirror sailing dinghy. Inever did get to use the 4 pound hammer in the
The move to electronicdistribution
Telegram Distribution Section, John Needham
27
destruction kit. Now that could make anotherstory of how many did get to use the destructionkit!
Whilst we're dealing with 'memories', somethings you can never forget. Kathleen Wain(SSU) tells me that after spending years ofwinding Murray code tape round her little fingerand thumb, her sewing box is full of ribbons andthread - all folded in the recommended way fortelegram tapes!
Small changes were made from time to time toupgrade the Comcen Message Handling systemsbut perhaps the most significant change of allinvolved the way in which the Comcen contactedposts to carry out their scheduled contacts. Priorto the first Gulf war, the limitation had been setby the equipment in use – 50 or 75 bauds. Workhad however been underway to develop animproved interface for post, the MK1Aworkstation, which would replace telex machinesand allow telegrams to be sent much faster, at1200 bauds per minute (or later, at twice thisspeed for certain posts). This equipment washurried into certain embassies abroad to facilitatepassing the large amounts of telegram traffic thatwe knew would be generated by what was seenas the inevitable (first) Gulf War, now loomingvery close on the horizon. It functionedextremely well and was an obvious improvementthat could be provided to all major posts – and arollout quickly got under way. This also brought
major improvements in line charges as the cost toComcen was only for a short ‘burst’ two or threetimes a day instead of the charge for a leased lineon a 24 hours basis.
Other major changes followed shortly after as the
Comcen moved to distribution of telegrams by
electronic means. The first, early efforts towards
electronic telegram distribution were in 1992 led
by Johnny Crossland involved the use of
DiskFax. It was fairly cumbersome, involving
sending a department's telegrams to them via
telephone, uploaded from a floppy disk – but it
worked, and enabled them to upload them into
their Secure Unix systems for internal
distribution and filing etc. While this was going
on, the early Secure Office Administration
systems (SOAP) were being upgraded by the
introduction of Aramis and a new telegram
distribution media initially called Secure Unix
Distribution System (SUDS) – later changed to
SWIFT, which doesn’t stand for anything
particular at all other than perhaps an aspiration!
SWIFT completely revolutionised telegram
distribution. Telegrams were now being delivered
direct to departments in accordance with the
distribution appended by the MDS staff as they
were processed, i.e. all day and all night. It was
no longer necessary to wait for paper copies to
appear distributed three times a day (except for
Advance copies of urgent telegrams). Gradually,
DSO at work, John Crossland
28
paper copies disappeared from the Boxroom.
OGDs took on SWIFT and copied our
technology of connecting their node direct to
their own OA system. To get a full idea of the
effect this had, we should remember that the
Comcen process about a thousand telegrams a
day. The (conservative) average distribution of
each telegram was to about fifteen departments.
The (conservative) average number of paper
copies to each department was about 6. Boxroom
were therefore going through a minimum of
90,000 sheets of paper a day – not a forest, but
definitely a respectable sized spinney! Paper
copies are now reduced to just a few a day, to the
European Union embassies in London and a
couple of senior members of staff who receive
paper copies of overnight traffic so they can start
work without having to wait until their PA’s
arrive.
Along with the ‘good’ times in the working
environment, over the years, Comcen staff have
also had to endure some dark times, and since it
also is part of our history, they should be
mentioned. Comcen has always had some
excellent managers – some super whizzkids and
some real characters. Comcen also from time to
time had to put up with some very unfortunate
management decisions from senior staff (outside
of the Comcen) – some situations were very
badly handled. In 1993 for instance, a decision
was made to close one of the Comcens, either
London or Hanslope Park. Eventually, it was
decided that Hanslope Park would get the chop
and the radio operation running at Hanslope Park
CRS would cease as of then, with all traffic
being routed over PSTN/DEL lines. Granted this
was before IiP etc, but staff were not consulted
or warned – they were simply told on a certain
day that the CRS would close and staff would
either transfer to London or take other jobs at
Hanslope Park. Some staff only received 24
hours notice to change to working in London and
remain somewhat bitter to this day for the bad
Good times, bad times
Part of the Comcen Main Traffic Hall
29
way they were treated. Later on, as work
practices drastically changed the Registry set up
in Washington, staff were told they would be
short toured even though many had made certain
arrangements to cover the length of their tour
such as letting their homes. Fortunately, Roger
French, Counsellor Management arrived on the
scene at this time and worked hard to change the
ruling into something more pragmatic. Roger
was later to become the Head of Information
Management Group based at Hanslope Park –
the umbrella sheltering the Comcen at that time –
a really super guy, aware of the particular needs
of the specialist staff and a constant crusader on
Comcen’s behalf. He is remembered with
affection. From about 1995, Comcen staff have
effectively been living under the sword of
Damocles. There has always been an awareness
that technological changes in IT would make at
least some parts of Comcen work redundant.
Some staff read the writing on the wall – and
moved into other work or joined other
departments – sometimes outside of the Civil
Service. Those who stayed have always had a
somewhat worried eye on the future.
Whilst we have looked at what has been
happening in London and Hanslope Park, it is
worth noting that since the inception of the
Cypher and Signals Branch, Comcen staff have
also been active in assisting managing situations
that have arisen abroad. The earliest we can
recall is Yom Kippur in 1967 where
communications staff backed up a number of
missions in the area involved as the work rate
rose through the roof. I understand some were
also employed in other tasks such as aircraft
spotting and reporting their activities. More
lately, we have supplied rapid deployment staff
and portable equipment to assist Kabul (Dave
Harvey), to Baghdad at the end of the second
Gulf war (Dave Harvey) and to Istanbul
following the bombing of the Consulate (Glenn
Smith relieved by Stuart McCarthy). We have
also on numerous occasions supported other
missions around the world suffering with
Comms/Registry staff droughts and no floater
cover available.
The latest major changes to the way Comcen do
business revolve around the new officewide
Confidential Firecrest IT systems. Firecrest in
Telegram Distribution Section, Joan Fenn supervising
30
one form or another is already in almost every
post abroad, including the smaller Consulates.
The gradual but inexorable shift to Confidential
email appeared likely to cause a (premature) cut-
back of Comcen staff when Comcen were told by
senior management that staff would be
drastically cut in October 2000 as Firecrest and
the Global Telecommunications Project (GTP)
took over the work currently carried out by
telegrams (this was locally nicknamed ‘Red
October’). This was an attempt to reduce
Comcen staffing numbers from 98 to about 31 to
help pay for GTP. In fact, Confidential Firecrest
was not ready to take over from telegrams at that
point - and this evolution could not take place
until the arrival of eGrams during October 2004.
However, the incident caused a great deal of
concern to Comcen staff at the time leaving them
even further unsettled with regard to their future
employment.
Nevertheless, improvements continued apace
with regard to further automation enabling steady
reductions in staff. One of these was called
'eTelegrams' where instead of receiving their
telegrams via a scheduled contact, posts already
on Confidential Firecrest were able to receive
their telegrams via Firecrest. This involved Ciber
UK putting in place various gateways that took
telegrams direct from posts' queues on the
Message Switch and passed them to the Firecrest
servers for delivery in email form. Malcolm
Daniels, Paul Brailsford and Pete Weedon
(Comcen Operations Manager) worked doggedly
away for over a year until to date, all bar six
posts are currently enjoying the fruits of their
labour. This process also took away a great deal
of the manual intervention required in the
Comcen. ETelegrams can be considered a direct
forerunner of eGrams, giving posts at least the
feel of receiving their telegrams via email
systems and having the flexibility of being able
to process them much more easily and quickly.
In May 2003, following the need for ITSU to
severely limit the scope of 'Focus' the
Knowledge Management programme, Comcen
were tasked with implementing eGrams to the
office. Chris Webb, who retired from the Head of
Comcen position in July 2003, volunteered to
stay on as a ‘fee paid’ officer to act as Project
Manager for Comcen change through the
migration to eGrams. The software experts
preparing the hardware and writing the software
are Ciber UK some of whose staff, particularly
Dave Atkinson and Mike Keehan have been
providing us with computer based tools for over
a decade now and are well tried and trusted - and
all of their work is of an excellent standard. It is
expected that the migration from telegrams to
eGrams will take place during October 2004.
There has been slippage regarding migration
dates but this has been to take on suggested
improvements from staff both at home and
abroad in response to various presentations and
display of eGrams information about the product.
It was considered more important that the
product should be in the best possible shape for
the users rather than rushed out to meet a
particular date and not be perhaps quite ready for
use.
eGrams will be produced through an FCO
produced Outlook form, complete with FCO
logo. They will take over from Telegrams as the
corporate reporting document. eGrams will run
(in theory) entirely through the Firecrest mail
hubs and gsi/x.gsi gateways. Telegram
originators at home and abroad will create their
own address section, including the Collective
eGrams
31
32
Address Groups we currently use in the Comcen,
their text, and then apply an FCO distribution,
either ad-hoc or by choosing one of the 300+
Collective Distribution Lists from the email
Global Address List (GAL). This will enable a
system much closer to desk-to-desk than has
been achieved before. Connections to OGDs as
addressees or as distribution recipients will be
made where possible through the Gsi and x.Gsi
inter-governmental IT links.
This should leave less traffic for the Comcen to
manually process. The eGrams gateways and
other related equipments are sited in the Comcen
as part of the Comcen infrastructure rather than
an IT operation - so it will be essentially business
as before but under a different name. The future
from October 2004 will certainly be different,
but we hope will be just as interesting as the past
proved to be. Preparing for the migration to
eGrams has been a huge task, almost as big as
the move to our first MHS Ferranti computer
suite 20 years ago. Chris Webb, on retiring from
the Head of Comcen post, took on the mantle of
Project Manager for eGrams (preferring to retire
gradually) and as ever, has done an excellent job.
All of Comcen management have been involved
to a high degree and helped the project through
to the present stage of readiness. IT Strategy Unit
have led on the project as it is their policy area -
and Jill Bennett and Anne McCarthy (ITSU)
have done a super job of polishing the project,
advertising it and presenting the package to the
Office. Well done both of you.
Stop Press on eGrams - we have just completed
the eGrams Pilot. The brave souls who
volunteered for this were AD(E), the PUS's
Private Office and Accra. All involved really
applied themselves to finding the best way to
make use of the new technology - and the
rewards were quickly plain: a more user friendly
telegram medium, faster, enhanced viewing and
printing, internal distribution via Summariser and
ability to use a wide range of attachments. Initial
feedback has been excellent. Thanks are due to
all involved - some of whom were: Julia
Edwards (AD(E)), Matthew Lodge, Nicola Friel,
Esther and Claire from PUS's Private Office -
and of course Sir Michael Jay who was keen for
his Office to be involved from the very
beginning - and all of those in Accra who
became the first Post to send and receive
eGrams.
The coming migration to eGrams has causedsome other problems for the Comcen. TheCabinet Office Comcen has been manned byFCO staff for at least the last 40 years; they arethe same grade as FCO Comcen staff and part ofthe same cadre. Primarily, because of staffingissues, it was seen as necessary that all Comcenstaff be drawn back into the FCO Comcen. FCOComcen based staff are generally provingreluctant to work in the Cabinet Officeenvironment so filling vacancies by volunteers isproving impossible. Also, the drawback of staffwould ensure that any staffing decisions made asa result of the migration to eGrams affected themall. It is expected that the migration will createsome redundancies in the workplace. At this time(mid July 2004), it is hoped that the FCOComcen can take on the Cabinet Office and No10 work as a wider markets initiative.
A second blow to be faced (for those who livesouth of the river) is the probability that as acasualty of the Lyons' Review, the (majority ofthe) Comcen operation will move site fromLondon to Hanslope Park during 2007,continuing to serve all of its customers fromthere. With the current level of secure electroniclinkages, this all seems eminently possible. We
Supporting acts
33
appreciate that those members of staff who livesouth of the Thames will have some difficultdecisions to make during the course of 2004-07regarding their futures.
Throughout this article, thus far, little mention
has been made of the Technicians who have
supported all of the various communications
equipments used in the Comcen, and indeed as
TMOs at posts abroad. I know that everyone who
has come into contact with them would agree
that they are a very highly-motivated and
extremely competent bunch of guys. Seldom
happy to just maintain a piece of equipment,
generally they love to 'tinker' - to explore exactly
how things work - to see if they can improve the
performance. They have for many years, and
continue to, support the Message Handling
operation both at home and abroad in exemplary
fashion. Their expertise continues to expand with
each new product that arrives in the workplace.
They have earned both our respect and thanks.
Before closing, perhaps we should provide a
mention of Bletchley Park, whose staff played
such a huge part during WWII deciphering the
enemies signals, thus enabling the British
government War Cabinet to anticipate much of
the German's movements and wider war plans.
Their work would have helped shift the odds on
winning to the allies and it is believed reduced
the duration of the war. To accomplish this,
Bletchley Park produced the very first computer,
Colossus. It is a nice touch that this computer has
been rebuilt for the D-Day celebrations of 2004.
The MK2 version was completed in 1944 and
was capable of reading a message (in telegraphic
tape format) at 5,000 characters per second and
carrying out 100 Boolean calculations at any one
time. It was so powerful it would take current
computers the same amount of time to break
codes. The machines were so successful that by
the end of the war, 63 million characters of
German messages had been decrypted. After the
war, most of the machines were scrapped to
protect their sophisticated secrets. However, this
was the very start of the links between
Some of the COMCEN team
34
communications equipments, cyphers - and
computers. Developing on from that start we
now have systems that enable us to communicate
freely and securely between all of our posts
abroad and the FCO buildings at home.
As computer technology improved and
improved, and Bill Gates arrived on the scene
with his bag of goodies, the Microsoft products
that we are now running on Firecrest have
produced some strange results for some of us
during the drafting process. Tim Jones of ITSU,
sent me a copy of a telegram addressed to All
Diplomatic Posts. The originator had
unfortunately not checked the results of the
Spellcheck of his telegram which changed
'Chechenya to TechNet' and even more
hilariously, 'MFA to Mafiosi'. The context of the
paragraph was with regard to Human Rights
work! That particular paragraph must have
produced some puzzled faces on being read
around the bazaars.
So, that is where we rest today, during the
Summer of 2004. Some of the future is just
beginning to appear in a hazy fashion in the
crystal ball - but much of it still remains
shrouded in mystery and will only be revealed a
bit at a time, like peeling an onion skin - one
shred at a time. Many big decisions cannot be
made until more of the future has been revealed
to us - much of the future of the Comcen will be
shaped as we move along. We have seen many
changes in the past - and know there are many
more to come in the future as we update and
perhaps carry out some changes of direction. It
will be a fascinating process in many ways, not
just from a technological point of view but also,
now that Comcen is part of FCO Services, to
observe how the need for good commercial
business practices affects the development of
messaging within the FCO and around Whitehall
and environs. More and more, we are being
constrained in how we 'tool up' and work by the
Conclusion
Last three Heads - Bill Dunningham, Alf Shackleford and Chris Webb
35
amount of funding available, and the need to
compromise in all areas to keep down costs.
Looking back, particularly over the last 20 years,
has been a fascinating process for me personally,
noting the huge steps 'communications' has taken
over a relatively very short time. This has been
possible primarily because of the high calibre of
technical staff we have had and still have
working in the background to identify the
business need and translate it into 'pieces of kit'.
Currently, these boffins now mostly reside in
ICT Group and People and Best Practice at
Hanslope Park. They will all know who they are
so I will just mention a couple of names: Roger
Castle-Smith, Dave Smith, Peter Martin, for IT -
Pat Cullen, Malcolm Daniels and many others.
They must have a great sense of pride in their
accomplishments over the years towards
improving the way the Office communicates.
Without all of the tools they have provided
Comcen, perhaps we would all still be labouring
away at Book cipher and one-time pad!
Many other changes to the Comcen infrastructure
have been identified by those who actually work
there and understand the business best.
Throughout the Comcen's existence, we have
always sought to polish and improve either
through updating systems or work practices.
Ideas have been suggested and taken up. The
work force are Specialists, focused on what they
do and fully understanding the very wide range
of procedures and skills necessary to complete
their tasks both efficiently and with the absolute
security necessary when handling such sensitive
material. Like all departments, we are fully
furnished with our own complement of
eccentrics (thank goodness!) - they have always
helped to make the Comcen such an interesting,
at times absorbing place in which to work. A
better group of guys to work with would be hard
to find.
Throughout the existence of the Comcen, we
have been very ably supported by our own,
dedicated Technical Engineers, originally
Engineering Services Department (ESD) and
currently part of ICT Group - also assisting the
IT sections where necessary as their skill set
widens and moves more and more towards IT
based systems. They made it their business to
become extremely familiar with all elements of
the Comcen Message Handling Systems so that
no matter what problem they were faced with,
they would be able to get the computer suites
back on line in the shortest possible time. Their
dedication and expertise is underlined by the
computer time 'on-line' figures over the lifetime
of the current message switch (almost 20 years)
of 99.999%. This is little short of incredible. We
have always valued their support - and
friendship. Recent heads of sections have been
Alf Shackleford (who went on to become Head
of Comcen), Ken Jacobs, Jeff Dyson and
currently Barry Weaver (ex-TCO who went back
to school to learn about the letters I and T).
Well, I feel the reader has now been brought as
up to date as can be accomplished at this time. I
hope the baton will be picked up by someone
else at a future date, to bring the record once
more up to date - to record just how the Comcen
continued to evolve after the Summer of 2004.
The past has been an interesting place to work -
and I'm sure the future offers its own brand of
interest, in a different way. I hope it gets written
down by somebody with a feeling for the history
of the branch and Office!
I am conscious that in the past, we have probably
not 'sold' ourselves as well as we could have
36
done. Part of the reason for this is that because of
the sensitive and often very highly classified
material we handle, the whole communications
organisation has always resided in out-of-the-
way, secret recesses inaccessible to everybody
else. Nowadays, we are much more visible and
positively encourage other members of staff to
know and understand more about us and what we
do as an organisation. As part of our work we
have always done our best to make the various
links with posts abroad and departments at home
work as efficiently as possible and this often
takes the form of 'talking' new staff abroad
through the processes needed to make contact
with Comcen and send and receive traffic. I well
remember one young lady returning from a post
abroad who came to see me because as she put it,
"I was so impressed with the help and support
given me by Comcen staff - particularly when
things got really tricky - that I just had to come
and say 'thank you' ". We often receive similar
notes and messages of thanks - and whilst we
inform Comcen staff, we have never quite got
the hang of telling everyone else - blowing our
own bugle! With the coming changes and
financial squeezes there will be more automation
and less 'people'. My hope is that we manage to
get the balance right so that we can still support
our posts when they need our help and maintain
a good level of friendly interaction along with an
efficient and forward looking operation. We have
always had a good rapport with the 'sharp end'
and hope this will continue well into the future.
In finishing, current Comcen management, Dave
Harvey, Dave Chalke, Pete Weedon, Ailsa Miller
and the two Custodians: Shahida Hafizi and Paul
McIlroy, not to mention our previous Head of
Comcen, Chris Webb (in his Consultancy
capacity of project manager for the eGrams
project) and myself, would like to send our very
best wishes to all members of Cypher and Signal
Branch both serving, on SUPL and retired – and
a special thought for some very special people,
among them Harry Ashton, Derek Hardy, Pete
James and Ron Froud, who have passed on over
the last few years. You have all provided a ‘part
of a very rich and complex fabric’.
For completeness, the very first 'live' eGram is
also attached. This is numbered 80/04 but the
first 79 were only test data.