An EnCrypted Special: 'The Diver' by A.J. Alan
Nottingham-born A.J. Alan (real name: Leslie Harrison Lambert) like so many of the authors covered on the EnCrypted podcast led a colourful and varied life. He was a performing magician, a radio ham, a volunteer coastguard radio operator, and later a naval intelligence officer who, by the start of World War II, was part of the vital military intelligence effort at Bletchley Park. Somehow, between the wars, he managed to also become one the Britain's most popular radio broadcasters, telling singularly strange short stories on the wireless to the delight of listeners across the UK. In a way he was a broadcasting pioneer for, although, like just about everyone else on the radio at the time, he spoke BBC English (Received Pronunciation), his delivery was rather less formal and rather more conversational. His rambling shaggy-dog anecdotes were contrived to appear off-the-cuff, but were in fact meticulously scripted, and Alan laboured over each story for weeks, some...