Highlights Bletchley Park and catching up with Margaret and Don.

We quietly sorted the washing and set off for Bletchley Park at about 10am. The guide had said to leave the M1 at Junction 13 but my phone map and tomtom both suggested a different route as there was some issue on the M1. I was using the map as a back up which was really really useful when the tomtom suddenly said the battery was flat. We switched to guidance by me from the map while I also swapped the usb port for the tomtom. That got it going but it died again and back into the first port and it lasted happily for the rest of the trip. We made a note to charge it properly at Margaret and Don’s.

We parked at the rather full carpark and went into the café first then to the information booth to book in for a 1.30pm tour, and to pick up audio guides.

We first went into the museum, Block B. It held a number of Enigma machines and details of their working, a display about the Lorenz cypher, used by Hitler to communicate with top officials and information about breaking the Japanese codes. There is also a neat statue of Alan Turing, details of his life and some of his notebooks.

We walked around the pond, which was a focus of social life when the Bletchley Park (referred to as BP) was active. The huts were noisy, cold in winter and hot in summer and fresh air was often welcome. We gathered that teacups often found their way into there when the codebreakers could not be bothered returning them.

The walking tour was very good. We had an older man taking us around and as he walked with a stick as well his pace was such that we all had no problems keeping up and the numbers were such that we had no problem all hearing.

He started with an overview in the Chauffeur’s cottage, where he set the scene. He had had a former teacher who had worked at Bletchley park, although of course he was unaware of this at the time, as the teacher never disclosed. He said his teacher was reading classics at Cambridge and his ‘record’ when he started at the school showed this and then service in a government department. He also said there was a couple who had been married for many years who never knew they had both worked there until they both received invitations to a reunion.

He did seem unsure of the secret service act as it still held for former employees. He said so much information came out 30 years after the end of the war that he assumed it was eased then but others, including us, felt that 100 years would still apply (although maybe not to everything as so much is now known). At the time, messages were pushed through from one hut to another (through a tube with a broom stick!) and no one talked about exactly what they did, even to others who worked at the site.

Our walk took us to the outside of buildings. We went first to the Mansion House, the original building on the site and the first to be used. Sir Hugh Sinclair, Head of MI6 setup a ‘Hunting and Shooting Party’ when he went around looking for a suitable place to move the Government Code and Cypher School to. This property became available in 1937 when the last of the family died. It was between Oxford and Cambridge, on a direct train to London but in an otherwise isolated area, so perfect. He bought it with his own money for 6000 pound after the Government said they did not have the budget for it.  They properly shifted here from London 6 weeks before WW2 started. The other buildings were erected as the numbers grew to over 10 000, working 24 hours a day in 3 shifts with 75% being women. The staff used the postal address, Room 47, Foreign Office.

We stopped at the garages and heard about the work of Group Y. They monitored communications and send the details through to BP. Dispatch riders had the odometers checked at both pick up and drop off and collected communications from nearby areas. Other information was sent by teleprinter from further out on secure lines.

There was a lot of talk about Alan Turing (who was based here right from the start), but also of the other decryption experts who worked there during the war. I learned about Commander Denniston (head of the GC&CS from 1919 to 1942), Dilly Knox, Gordon Welsheman, Bill Tutte and others and later we saw more about them in the rooms. The mix of people caused the group to be called the Golf, Cheese and Chess Society as it was a mix of boffins and debutantes later boosted by more WRENS.

We went past the Polish memorial. The original breaking of Enigma had been done by the Poles and seeing the writing on the wall for their country they handed over their findings to USA, France and UK very soon before the war began. This gave the people at Bletchley a great head start.

The tour concluded outside 2 of the huts that had been renovated to make them safe, but left the inside as much as possible like the originals. The advice was then to go into the buildings. If a door is open we could assume we could go through it was the only instruction.

We started in the Mansion House and saw the mock-up of the Commander’s office and library. There was one room set aside to show the history of the family who had owned it. One display was the life and work of Bill Tutte. He made the fundamental break though in decoding Lorenz. An operator made a major error in sending 2 copies of the same message, one slightly abbreviated, using the same settings on his machine. Tutte found a repetition when the printout was blocked in groups of 41 characters, and from this the logical structure of the machine was eventually determined. Often breakthroughs came because operators were human and made mistakes or had common themes or were lazy.

There was also an exhibition of what it was like to live and work here at the time. It had been emphasised that the homes where the workers were billeted were all around the area and the owners were used to their billettees going to work in uniform. Then they might see them in posh frocks and furs going to London for a break.

Huts 11 and 11A showed us what it was like to operate the Bombe (decoding) machines. Loud, tedious, hot and smelly seemed the common thread along with strict security and saying nothing. The codebreakers would send through the menu of settings and the operators would watch out for stops when things matched. They also had lots of false stops when the mechanics of the machines failed and they needed to be cleaned or adjusted. They used tweezers to straighten the metal brushes in the electric engines and kept them ticking with machine oil.

Huts 3 and 6 were the areas that the codebreakers working on the German army and air-force codes worked. Hut 8 was the navy one, where Alan Turing worked. It showed a mock-up of his office here, with the comment that no one wanted to do the navy, so he took it on.

We also saw an unexpected display honouring the work of carrier pigeons. It was pointed out that they had been the saviours for some when technology failed. There is even a special award for carrier pigeons, the Dickin Medal. The recipients over the year were mentioned in this room and it was pointed out that they also feature in the Animals in War display near Hyde park which we had seen earlier.

We went around the first area last and read about the work done in WW1 as well. We then exited via the shop, which had a number of great puzzles but which were too big or heavy to take away.

We left just before the area closed at 5pm and headed for Margaret and Don’s home in Aspley Guise. After parking we found 47A then rang Don and he met us a bit further up the road at 47. They have a lovely ground floor flat at Nether Hall, where Cleo Lane once lived, although they believe in the whole Hall. They showed us their 2 outside areas and 3 bedrooms (one a study, one theirs and one for us that is also the sewing room) before we sat in the lounge over a cuppa and admired the chandelier.  This they had cleaned drop by drop, but were not thinking they would do it again as they are leaving in September. They are also concerned about the carpet as they have told the landlord there is some sort of carpet moth chewing through it. It is not their problem except for the fact they have their clothes in the house and lots of Margaret’s sewing materials. One expert told them that their things will be fine, but they have lots of moth balls.

We walked down to the village pub for tea. It had had a great fish pie but after its reinvention as a gastropub, that went off the menu. We could not try an English wine as there were none on the menu but we all found something we wanted for the main and dessert. The venue was a little loud, but the food was fine and the company was great. We then walked back the small distance to Margaret and Don’s and sampled an English wine. We all decided it was not too flash, which was a pity as their wines are getting an ever-improving reputation. After another good chat we retired to bed.