Leslie Lambert

‘There for the first time crept over the air a pernickety, shy, languid, somewhat emasculate 'posh’ voice of the kind with which we are now only too familiar in radio-announcers..(he)…was the initiator of the 'BBC accent'. Those diffident hesitations of his were in reality artfully contrived stage-pauses, for dramatic or humorous effect... his radio- personality a facade to hide a much more exuberant and artistic personality than his Whitehall-inhibited self.’ These words, written by film Director Kenelm Foss, described Leslie Lambert in his pseudonym AJ Alan, the radio raconteur, during the interwar period. He could be highlighted as one of the most colourful members of staff in our history. He was a member of the Magic Circle in the years leading up to the First World War, and in the first issue of The Magic Circular in June 1906 it was noted that Lambert, ‘surprised and delighted all present by giving a display of pure dexterity combined with an admirable style.’ Born in 1883 and educated at Rugby School, he began a career as a surveyor which lasted for seven years before he changed profession as a Magician, becoming professional in 1904, appearing twice before Queen Alexandra and the Princess of Wales. He would go on to become the Vice-President for the Magic Circle between December 1908 to November 1909.

Lambert was an ambitious young radio amateur during the First World War (working at the Coastguard station in Hunstanton on the North Norfolk coast) and was brought in as an expert by the Admiralty to help with interception. He ended up running a string of intercept stations and became a member of the Wireless Board. At the end of the First World War he was recruited into GC&CS as an expert in Wireless Telegraphy (W/T).

In the interwar period Lambert was introduced to the Metropolitan Police intercept station by Colonel Edward Neal of SIS where he had been working to locate COMINTERN illicit transmitters in London. He was credited with tracing the first known case of a Russian clandestine transmitter being operated in the UK. In 1930, working closely with Harold Kenworthy, then of the Metropolitan Police site at Denmark Hill, he located a room in a terraced house in a suburb of London used by Communist agitators for communicating with Moscow.

He lived in Holland Park but could frequently be found sailing his boat on the Norfolk Broads whilst staying at his second home in the Norfolk village of Potter Heigham.
Lambert was one of the original 'Captain Ridley's Shooting Party' of 1938 that did the scouting of Bletchley as a wartime site for SIS/GC&CS. He worked at Bletchley Park between 1939-1941, ostensibly in Hut 8 and the Naval Section as a Morse Code and Traffic Analyst specialist. He was recognised at Bletchley due to his recognisable voice, so became very well known to everyone on site.

Lambert assisted with the control of Foreign Office intercept stations while he was at Bletchley prior to his untimely death on the 13th December 1941. He was a fascinating character who played a significant role in wireless interception, but at the same time secretly performed as a story teller on BBC Radio, under the name of A.J.Alan, in programmes such as 'My Adventure in Jermyn Street’. He was to go on to record some seventy broadcasts for the BBC between 1924 and 1941. He also used the pseudonym AJ Allenby when engaged in covert liaison work for GC&CS with radio intercept amateurs from the Radio Security Service (RSS).

© The National Archives - Ref ADM337/125/518

Archive document showing Lambert worked at Hunstanton and when he was recruited for the new Government Code & Cypher School.