Bletchley Park

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At the beginning of August 2008 I had the opportunity to visit Bletchley Park, the scene of much incredible work on code breaking during the second world war. Enigma, seen the film, read the book, but to see the reality of the machine and the 9000 people who worked there year on year is a humbling and fascinating experience.

Very interesting. My father who was a wireman for Ericssons worked for a while at Bletchley Park during the war and was later transferred to Corsham where there was a secret base underground where they specialised in U Boat communications. He used to come home at weekends to Cardiff.

Tony Escott, Cima, Italy.

The buildings have no financial support other than the entrance money paid by visitors. They do seem to be freshly painted at the entrance area, though. Perhaps the visit by Prince Charles and Camilla the other week!		The main building reminds me so much of the BBC's engineering establishment at Wood Norton in Worcestershire.
	Inside, as we waited for our guide, time to admire the windowed ceiling. The man on the right looks pretty familiar...
The sun comes out and we begin the two hour guided tour.		At the end of the war, The British Post Office took over much of the site and this little building was used for training Post Masters in all matters postal.
	Our guide certainly makes it look small.		Some re roofing work going on in the background.
Oh dear, nostalgia looms large for me here; this Austin was definitely a middle class acquisition of the late 1950's! (I was a 40's child)		There were other vintage vehicles lurking in the semi darkness, some were used in the film of the Enigma story.
	It's always 4.30 around here...		There has been much coverage of the state of the buildings here at Bletchley Park in the Press lately. Put simply, they need more money.
	The 'Bombe' was an amazing piece of machinery (here reconstructed for the film) that was an integral part of the code breaking. Too complicated to explain here!
Then, we went on to see Colossus, a rebuilt and fully working version after the originals were all destroyed at Churchill's orders at the end of the war.
		Our guide told us that these valves were up to 64 years old and still in working order thanks to some careful powering up and powering down procedures. 15Kwatts is the running power!
Er no, not a lot to do with computers but this retired old lady (Harrier) attracted lots of interest from the camera lobby.			The 'owners' name stencilled on the fuselage.