STORIES about a 'secret military tunnel' beneath Fishergate are true after all - The Press has spoken to a man who has been there.

In 1959, John Powell was a young civil service clerk straight out of Nunthorpe School who had just started his first job as a civilian clerical officer at the army's Northern Command HQ on Fishergate.

It was an important building - the headquarters of Army operations for the north of England. Now the Tower House business centre it was, back in the day, known to York people simply as 'The War Office'.

In his first week as a clerk John, then just 17, was given a tour of the building - and the secret underground tunnel which connected it to Fishergate House on the other side of the road.

Fishergate House was Northern Command's pay office. But its basement was a secret communications centre.

The tunnel itself was ordinary, John says; panelled, and painted green. But it opened out into that basement which housed the secret communications room. "It was full of teleprinters and operators," John recalled. "There was quite a noise down there."

The tunnel was used to carry messages between the' war office' and the communications centre - though John doesn't know much more about it than that. He only went through it the once, he said, and that more than 60 years ago.

There have long been rumours of a tunnel under Fishergate linking the two former army buildings.

Most recently, interest was re-ignited in the tunnel by research done by some students from the University of York, who have been working with York Civic Trust and the Fishergate, Fulford and Heslington history society to delve into the history of Tower House.

The entrance to the Fishergate House end of the tunnel has been discovered - but not the Tower House entrance. John believes it led out of a post room - but says he probably wouldn't recognise it now.

With the backing of Harry Gillam, the Tower House business centre manager, Dr Duncan Marks of the York Civic Trust will next week be leading a small group of researchers - including John himself - in a search for the Tower House entrance to the tunnel.

"John isn’t too confident that he would be able to recognise where the post room was," Dr Marks said. "But we are still hopeful that a site visit might help prompt a recollection."

John only worked at Tower House for two years. But he has one other very vivid memory. It, too, dates from that introductory tour. His guide opened a door into a room. "There were about 20 men in there, quietly reading books and newspapers," John recalled.

He asked what they were doing. His guide put a finger to his lips, quietly closed the door, then told John that they were all former Japanese POWs. John believes they were being employed on 'makework' because they were still so traumatised that they were unable to do anything more.