Please write about your time at Spyway School (1935-1976) on this blog. To submit a story or photograph, email your memories to Edward Gormon ('The Ghost of Old Tom Pellatt') at eye2eye222@aol.com and he will post it for you.
A bar of chocolate will be awarded for the best entry and a double-page essay for the worst.
2 comments:
Dear Edward Gorman
I was at the Oratory Prep School , Canford Cliffs , from 1949 to 1953 .
I remember Spyway well as we used to play rugby and cricket against them , and always found them formidable opponents . They were always much tougher players than we were . And I remember the two Warner brothers , and travelling to Spyway to play . Spyway was different to the other schools .
Why I write is because I have just finished a WW2 book about a daring commando raid on the coast of Normandy in 1941-2 in which a complete German radar unit on the French coast was pinched/dismantled and brought back to England . The Germans were able to track incoming Allied bombers , home in their fighters and cause enormous losses of bombers . The Allies knew the Germans had a much more advanced radar system , and needed to find out and counter this . Aerial photography had identified a strange rotating dish outside a seaside chateau on the cliffs of Normandy . The bomber losses were enormous and could not be sustained . This commando raid was successful and provided the necessary intelligence and scientific know how , and the result was " window " which the bombers then dropped in flight , which confused the German radar .
In this book , mention is made of a similar radar/intelligence/listening unit which was positioned .... " near Swanage "...., and , following this escapade , was hastily relocated to the north of England lest the Germans carried out a similar raid .
Was Spyway this listening unit outside Swanage ? The name might suggest
this and I wonder if you have any knowledge of the history or of the provenance of the Spyway buildings .
I would be most interested to hear from you .
Yours sincerely
Sean Cunningham .
The radar defences were at Worth Matravers, a mile away from Spyway.
http://www.purbeckradar.org.uk/purbeck/
The history of the Spyway buildings is detailed on the blog under the 2009 tab 'A History Essay'.
Good luck with your book.
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