The Lincolnshire Poacher - Numbers Station.
By: The Numbers Stations.. they've been an enigma for a couple of decades.. many people who are apparently 'in-the-know' say they are for spies/agents worldwide. Many of them are sort of famous in their own right like the 'Russian Buzzer' and the 'Swedish Fairy Tale' but the most famous among the people who listen to this stuff has to be The Lincolnshire Poacher (TLP has been used by many and varied peoples and Associations world-wide for over one hundred years.. it was originally the traditional English folk song associated with the county of Lincolnshire and deals with the joys of poaching. It is considered to be the unofficial county anthem of Lincolnshire. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 299.. The tune was also used and known by many New York Regiments during the American Civil War as The New York Volunteer. The Lincolnshire Poacher was also the marching song for the 20th Battalion Australian Imperial Force during the First World War. But the best give away is it's the principal musical theme of the quick march of the Intelligence Corps.. anyway, after the intro comes sets of numbers for the agent(s) concerned.. apparently even the inflection of certain numbers at the end of each string also has meaning. Initially it was traced to an RAF Base situated in Hertfordshire but when this became public knowledge and people began poking around the perimeter of the base it was moved lock stock and barrel to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus where the security can be better managed.
An interesting aside (for those of us so enamoured and Rivet Counters and the cognoscenti and admirers of the genre) there is a magazine for such bods and topics entitled The Colonel (don't know if it still functions) it printed a 'special' phone number which when dialled played the Lincolnshire Poacher along with the code numbers'. After it was called The Colonel received a call and an email from a 'Mr Bland' telling them that this is a restricted number and is not to be dialled again. Interestingly, 'Mr Bland' was the name given to the Secret Agent in John le Carré's book 'Soldier Sailor Tinker Spy' about bringing back an old spy to spy on the spies for it was thought by many for a long time there was a Soviet Mole in the Higher Ranks of MI6 and his job was to trace and expose the mole. The Soviets had indeed inveigled their way into the security services after the war through the 'hmosxl elite of Oxford and Cambridge Universities and it went all the way up to Sir Anthony Blunt who was the Queens keeper of art at the Royal Palaces and he was outed as being a Russian spy....t'was real murkey stuff.
Anyway, I give you The Lincolnshire Poacher..