Codes and rails

For Dr Peter Jarvis, 86, retirement has been a very rewarding time, which has allowed him to renovate both the wartime home of the British codebreakers and a railway.

Jarvis retired “for the first time” from his role as a general practitioner in 1992. Born in Wales, he was a member of the Welsh national archaeological society and was told by the society’s general secretary to “keep your eyes and ears open” about something unusual near his former workplace of Milton Keynes. Eventually, it became public that Bletchley Park, a nearby 19th-century mansion and estate, was once the top-secret central site of British and Allied codebreakers during the Second World War.

Jarvis became a founder trustee of Bletchley Park’s independent charity and was instrumental in its initial restoration. “My wife, Sue, and a friend manned the office and, with another friend, I took people on tours of the place. It became very popular. Now it’s getting a quarter of a million visitors every year!” Not stopping at that, Jarvis also renovated Ffestiniog Railway, a narrow-gauge railway and tourist attraction in Snowdonia, North Wales. Ffestiniog, the oldest railway company in the world, had always held a fascination for Jarvis. “I have been interested in Ffestiniog Railway since I was seven. We were evacuated to North Wales from Liverpool during the war and when I arrived by train there were notices about a ‘toy’ railway. I knew it must be special.”

The railway closed in 1946 and lay derelict until 1954. In 1958, Jarvis started working on it at weekends. When he retired at the age of 60, he raised funds and helped manage the railway’s renovation. He even helped build a section. “We set about building a 25-mile (40-kilometre) branch line from Caernarfon over the mountains to Porthmadog. We got in civil engineering contractors to build the bridges and earthwork but reserved for ourselves the pleasure of laying the track. I became a competent plate layer. By the time I was 75, I was a lot fitter than when I was 60!”