Port Talbot: Bletchley Park codebreakers finally meet at 100

Kath Morris (left) and Gwenfron Picken, with Capt Huw Williams representing the Lord Lieutenant of West Glamorgan

Two women who worked as codebreakers at the top secret Bletchley Park have met for the first time at a joint celebration of their 100th birthdays.

Gwenfron Picken and Kath Morris, both from Port Talbot, were born a week apart in 1924.

They left home at around the same time during World War Two, joining efforts in Buckinghamshire to decipher Hitler's "unbreakable" enigma code.

But the pair only recently met at their joint party in Port Talbot.

Mrs Morris, who now lives in a care home in Neath, turned 100 on 7 March.

Mrs Picken, born on 29 April 1924, joined her in a celebration organised by the Mother's Union at St Theodore's Parish Hall in Port Talbot.

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Both worked at Britain's code and cipher school in the iconic huts and blocks of Bletchley, a Victorian mansion that served as the UK's secret codebreaking headquarters during World War Two.

Coded messages sent by the Nazis, including orders from Adolf Hitler, were intercepted and then translated.

Women cryptographers at Bletchley Park hut three, deciphering top-secret military communiques from the Axis powers

"It was delightful the ladies could meet at last after both working during wartime at Bletchley Park," said Finola Pickwell, the armed forces' regional liaison officer.

"Those at Bletchley Park played a key role in shortening World War Two by providing the Allies with a flood of high grade military intelligence which gave them the edge on land, sea and in the air."

Mathematician Alan Turing developed a machine, the bombe, that could decipher messages sent by the Nazi enigma device.

By 1943, Turing's machines were cracking 84,000 messages each month - helping to give the Allied forces the upper hand.

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