What Amazon says:
Bletchley Park was where one of the war’s most famous – and crucial – achievements was made: the cracking of Germany’s “Enigma” code in which its most important military communications were couched. This country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside was home to Britain’s most brilliant mathematical brains, like Alan Turing, and the scene of immense advances in technology – indeed, the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were instrumental in turning both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa.
But, though plenty has been written about the boffins, and the codebreaking, fictional and non-fiction – from Robert Harris and Ian McEwan to Andrew Hodges’ biography of Turing – what of the thousands of men and women who lived and worked there during the war? What was life like for them – an odd, secret territory between the civilian and the military?
Sinclair McKay’s book is the first history for the general reader of life at Bletchley Park, and an amazing compendium of memories from people now in their eighties – of skating on the frozen lake in the grounds (a depressed Angus Wilson, the novelist, once threw himself in) – of a youthful Roy Jenkins, useless at codebreaking, of the high jinks at nearby accommodation hostels – and of the implacable secrecy that meant girlfriend and boyfriend working in adjacent huts knew nothing about each other’s work.
So.… what did I think:
Without any facts at my fingertips, but only hearsay from occasional
broadcasts about Bletchley Park and the Enigma code I have always had a rather
glamorous notion of the place, a hothouse of a select group of brilliant people
who put their minds to the cracking of the code and who had eureka moment. So the story of a rambling house populated by
thousands of men and women, recruited in sometimes most chancey and haphazard ways in order to
set about the long slog of the interception and decoding bit by bit of the
German code, was a revelation. McKay manages to convey from the outset that there
was an atmosphere of informality and disorganisation at the house that was overcome
by the British talent getting on with things.
I loved the way Sinclair McKay tells a story of human beings, sometimes
so aristocratic, and others so ordinary who were united in loyalty to their
mission. A loyalty so solid that it persisted
into this century. The staff at
Bletchley Park were secretive even between themselves. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of their
story is that they kept it secret for so long: most veterans did not even tell
their families what they had been up to, and only confessed when the cat was
officially let out of the bag 30 years later.
So Bletchley was staffed by a motley collection of people, cryptographers,
mathematicians, Egyptologists, linguists, astrologers. Sometimes it was down to
who you knew in upper circles, who for example a relative played golf with. The inmates had been recruited from all walks
of life. Debutantes and working-class girls mixed with mathematicians,
servicemen and university lecturers in an environment where the normal class
divisions and deference for rank no longer seemed to apply. They entertained
themselves by putting on their own shows and music recitals, playing tennis and
swimming in the manor house lake. They smuggled barrels of cider into their
rooms, worried about how to make their rations last, and fell in love among the
clattering machinery.
I loved the anecdotal bits, like the fact that code-breaking machines
that were cobbled together with everyday objects such as sticking plasters and
pieces of string – one of these machines was actually called the “Heath Robinson”. And yet of enduring
significance apart from the immediate benefit of shortening war I learnt that
the forerunner of the computer was created here.
The setting up of Bletchley Park was rather amateur at the outset,
described endearingly by the author. Those
it brought together were united in a common and vital task. I think it must have been very exciting to be
involved in such a crucial and unique part of the war effort. Cushioned from many of the vicissitudes of
living in wartime Britain, working in that rarified atmosphere seems very
glamorous to me, being a committed crossworder and puzzler. I have a Codeword app on my iPad which I
love. It was real cloak and dagger stuff
that resulted in the establishment of a very professional organisation derived
from the best of human endeavour, ingenuity and commitment.
Having read this book I now feel I must visit the place to see it for
myself. Does anyone want to join me?
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