Codebreaker Marge gets to fire a gun 63 years after demob

Monday 28th June 2010, 2:29PM BST.

Marge Dodsworth at the noonday gun with regular firer Keith Pike. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0990090)

A FORMER Wren who helped to decipher the German Enigma code during the Second World War got the chance to fire her first gun in anger on Saturday.

Marge Dodsworth, 84, was invited to trigger the noonday cannon at Castle Cornet as part of an Armed Forces Day reception.

‘It was breathtaking to be asked and I think it was great,’ said Mrs Dodsworth, a Wren from 1943 to 1947 whose work between 1943 and VE Day was linked to Bletchley Park.

The reception, organised by the Culture and Leisure Department, was attended by about 60 people, including members of the armed forces, past and present. Deputy Culture and Leisure minister Mike Garrett said he wished to thank everyone in the armed forces for what they did, on behalf of the people of Guernsey.