Sir Arthur Bonsall, who has died aged 97, was a veteran of the second world war codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park, where he played a key role in intercepting German Luftwaffe communications during the Battle of Britain and subsequently during the strategic bombing of Germany. Many years later, he was appointed head of GCHQ, Bletchley’s postwar successor.
Like most of his wartime colleagues, Bonsall had been indoctrinated in the absolute need for official secrecy. When GCHQ moved to its exotic “doughnut” building on the outskirts of Cheltenham a decade ago, and the four-letter acronym that stands for the Government Communications Headquarters (the official euphemism to describe the electronic eavesdropping centre) appeared on the city’s buses, Bonsall confessed to being shocked. “Grandchildren now had authority to ask me what I was doing, so I began to have to try to remember what I did do during the war. That was quite a big change.”
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