#bletchley park

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Wrens played a major part in the planning and organisation of naval operations, serving at Bletchley Park and its out-stations, operating machines used in code-breaking.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[princesscatherineblog]

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, visits the D-Day exhibition at Bletchley Park on May 14, 2019 in Bletchley, England. 

[ammg-old2]

A woman who worked at the top secret Bletchley Park codebreaking centre in World War Two has received over 200 cards to mark her 104th birthday following a social media appeal.

Joan Mace worked as a tele-printer operator at the site where Alan Turing cracked the Nazi Enigma code.

Staff at the Cloverleaf Care Home in Lincoln, where Mrs Mace now lives, asked the public to send her 104 cards for her birthday on Monday.

But nearly twice that amount were sent.

Mrs Mace had been left feeling "over the moon" at people's generosity, staff at the home said.

The great-grandmother told the BBC: "It's made me feel important, but I'm not important, I'm just me. It's nice that they care.

"It's really nice, very sweet and very kind.

"I've got all of them on the chest of drawers, on the table, on the wardrobe. I've never had so many."

Born on 26 June 1919, Mrs Mace was one of 13 children and grew up in a two-bedroom cottage in Essex.

After she turned 21, she joined the RAF.

Mrs Mace said she met her husband, Ron, a driver in the Army, in an air raid shelter while she still lived in Essex.

She said: "We got engaged and I never saw him for a long time. He was in the Army and he was going away a lot and I joined the Air Force."

She went on to work at Bletchley Park, the Buckinghamshire code-breaking centre.

Workers there were responsible for decrypting enemy codes.

Having lived through so many decades, Mrs Mace said she did not believe life had become much easier since the war.

"Life is hard work. Children aren't able to get to school properly. People are struggling to feed their families. It seems unfair," she said.

As well as receiving 202 birthday cards from people across the UK and abroad - including one from the King - Mrs Mace also enjoyed a trip to the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincoln.

She said her birthday this year had been "marvellous".

Staff at Cloverleaf Care Home thanked everyone who sent birthday cards for Mrs Mace following their appeal.

[enbycrip]

ID: “We were at Bletchley Park yesterday and found this attached to a gate, tucked out the way, where the dispatch riders used to enter the park” in black text on white above a photo of a wooden cross with “Alan Turing, 1912-1954” hand written on the upper vertical piece. There is a paper red remembrance poppy attached to the centre of the crosspiece and a rainbow pride flag hand-drawn behind the poppy. The words “in remembrance” are printed below the crosspiece. The cross is tucked into a rusty chain holding a rusted gate shut, with a new silver padlock locked into the chain.

[a-series-of-small-things-blog]

Alan Turing Resources

Hello! My name is Veronica. Alan Turing might be one of the most important people of the 20th Century and I want to share as much as I can. As time goes on, I think it is more and more important to share his story. So, these resources are posted somewhere on almost all of my social media. I will work on updating this as I see fit. And don't ever hesitate to reach out to talk! Either about Alan Turing or literally anything else. Thank you!

Archives/Resources

AlanTuring.net

Turing Digital Archive

Alan Turing Internet Scrapbook

The Old Shirburnian Society

Bletchley Park/Code Breaking

Bletchley Park

https://codesandciphers.org.uk/

https://cryptocellar.org/

https://daytoncodebreakers.org/

Books About Alan

Alan Turing: The Enigma

Alan Turing: The Enigma (Full Book)

Alan Turing's Manchester

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Prof: Alan Turing Decoded

The Turing Guide

Documentaries

Codebreaker

The Strange Life and Death of Dr Turing

Alan's Work

The Essential Turing

Mechanical Intelligence

Morhpogenesis

Pure Mathematics

Mathematical Logic

System's of Logic

Misc Resources

Google doc of other resources, websites, articles, etc. that don't quite fit anywhere else but I still think are interesting! - Link

[brigittemarlt]

The man who has broken the code. Alan Turing  is one of Derek’s most memorable portrayal. Emotionally intense. Turing should have been a hero of his time. He was finally a victim of Intolerance. He has contributed to save mankind. And mankind has betrayed him. What Derek did here is more than an artistic performance. It is also a personal tribute to a great man. He has highly contributed by his talent to put Turing’s work and life into light and given him the recognition that he deserved (photo : Martha Swope)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Happy International Women's Day!

Charlotte Elizabeth "Betty" Webb, MBE (née Vine-Stevens), born on 13 May 1923, worked as a code breaker at Bletchley Park during World War II at the age of 18.

She contributed to the work of breaking the German cipher, Enigma.

She joined the British Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1941. In joining the top-secret mission at Bletchley, she said:

"I wanted to do something more for the war effort than bake sausage rolls."

[tmarshconnors]

Buckinghamshire VS West Sussex

Buckinghamshire and West Sussex are both counties in England, and they have distinct characteristics. Here's a brief comparison of the two:

Location:

Buckinghamshire: Located in South East England, Buckinghamshire is close to London and is known for its picturesque countryside, historic towns, and proximity to the Chiltern Hills.

West Sussex: Situated in the South East of England as well, West Sussex is known for its diverse landscapes, including the South Downs National Park, beautiful coastline, and historic towns.

Countryside and Landscapes:

Buckinghamshire: Known for its rolling hills, the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the Thames Valley, Buckinghamshire offers a mix of rural and suburban landscapes.

West Sussex: Offers a diverse landscape with the South Downs, which is a range of chalk hills, as well as coastal areas along the English Channel.

Economy:

Buckinghamshire: The county has a strong economy, with a mix of industries including technology, healthcare, and finance. It is home to some affluent towns and has good transport links to London.

West Sussex: The economy in West Sussex is varied, with a focus on agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. It also has commuter towns and is within reach of London.

Towns and Cities:

Buckinghamshire: Includes towns such as High Wycombe, Aylesbury, Olney and Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes is a new town known for its modern planning and development.

West Sussex: Chichester, Worthing Littlehampton, and Crawley are among the towns in West Sussex. Crawley is known for its proximity to Gatwick Airport.

Historical and Cultural Attractions:

Buckinghamshire: Boasts historical sites like Bletchley Park, the former World War II codebreaking centre, as well as historic houses like Waddesdon Manor.

West Sussex: Features attractions such as Chichester Cathedral, Arundel Castle, and the Weald and Downland Living Museum.

Transportation:

Buckinghamshire: Well-connected to London by road and rail, with the M40 motorway passing through and several train services.

West Sussex: Accessible by major roads, and Gatwick Airport, one of the busiest airports in the UK, is located in West Sussex.

Ultimately, the choice between Buckinghamshire and West Sussex depends on personal preferences, lifestyle, and specific needs. Both counties offer a mix of rural charm, historical attractions, and economic opportunities.

[wikiweird]

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is a historic site located in Bletchley, England. During World War II, it served as the central site for British codebreakers who worked to decrypt and analyze encrypted messages from German and other Axis powers' communications.

The article provides an overview of Bletchley Park's role as a key intelligence hub during the war. It highlights the efforts of notable codebreakers such as Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, and others who played a crucial role in breaking the Enigma cipher used by the Germans.

Bletchley Park housed a diverse group of individuals with various skills, including mathematicians, linguists, chess champions, and crossword enthusiasts. Their collective efforts led to significant breakthroughs in deciphering intercepted enemy messages, providing vital intelligence to the Allied forces.

The article delves into the codebreaking techniques and technologies employed at Bletchley Park, including the development of electromechanical machines like the Bombe and the pioneering work in early computing, such as Turing's design for the automatic computing engine.

After the war, much of the work conducted at Bletchley Park remained classified for many years. However, the site has since been opened to the public as a museum and heritage site, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the history of codebreaking and its impact on the outcome of World War II.

Bletchley Park stands as a symbol of the remarkable intellectual efforts and achievements of the codebreakers who worked tirelessly to crack enemy codes, contributing significantly to the Allied war effort and shaping the course of history.

Read more

[willcodehtmlforfood]

It's worth visiting bletchley park and the museum of computing - I mean look at that note!

[wezg]

Review: Before Bletchley Park – The Codebreakers of The First World War – by Paul Gannon

I have previously read a lot of material on World War 2 codebreakers and the likes of Alan Turing and their critical work against Enigma and the invention of modern computing during that period. Of course, codebreaking and cryptography is not a new science and has been a critical part of both war and diplomacy since ancient times and has only increased in significance as time progresses. World…

[mel-rhodes-place]

MISTAKEN FOR HAMAS FIGHTERS, AID WORKERS KILLED

John Chapman, James ‘Jim’ Henderson and James Kirby, three Britons among the seven WCK aid workers killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza. Photograph: PA (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/israeli-airstrike-gaza-british-citizens-aid-workers-killed) Mistaken for Hamas terrorists, three British aid workers were amongst seven humanitarian workers killed while trying to deliver aid into…

[onelungmcclung]

Telegraph crossword: Cracking hobby won the day

The boffins of Bletchley cut their teeth on the Telegraph crossword, says Sinclair McKay.

“We were very good at crosswords,” says one of the veteran codebreakers of Bletchley Park, “and also anything to do with anagrams. And of course Scrabble.”

When I wrote my book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park I interviewed brilliant men and women – mathematicians, linguists, debutantes – who had smashed the German Enigma codes in the Second World War. I found that they were not your average eggheads or scientists. Cryptography was a fine art that required an aptitude for lateral thinking, even a certain amount of psychological acuity.

Famously, one method of recruitment to the top secret code-breaking centre in Buckinghamshire was by means of a Daily Telegraph crossword competition; one winner solved the puzzle in 12 minutes, and was thereafter covertly inducted into the mysteries of Bletchley.

Perhaps tellingly, after all these decades, some Bletchley veterans now still swear by their Telegraph crossword. And the link between crosswords, cryptography and mental gymnastics is intriguing to say the least, with lessons for us all.

A recent Cambridge study suggested that further education can help prevent the onset of dementia. Other reports in recent years have suggested that the same is true for word games.

So is there something inherently beneficial about crosswords? Should we all be allocating part of a day to solving them? Are puzzles good for us?

They are certainly embedded deep in the national consciousness. Indeed, part of the reason that interest in the work of Bletchley Park continues to grow (the museum is a thriving attraction and the archive is about to go online) is that codes are perhaps the ultimate expression of the British puzzle obsession.

It is an obsession that embraces not merely crosswords; it stretches back centuries and pulls in everything from elaborate medieval riddles to beautiful and fiendish yew mazes.

We might even count the whodunnit, which is now practically a native art form. How many versions of Sherlock Holmes is it possible to produce? How else to account for the record-breaking sales of Agatha Christie? When reading or watching such things, what else are you doing except pitting your wits against an author who has encrypted the mystery’s solution deep into the weave of the story?

During my research, I was struck by the recurrence of this taste for recreational puzzles; the veteran codebreakers I talked to had this strong leaning during the war and carried that shrewd, lightning-fast cleverness all the years after.

Solving problems or crosswords is partly to do with the ability to look at things in a different way. Codebreaker Mavis Batey – who helped Britain win the Battle of Matapan in 1941 by cracking the Italian Enigma – recalled how years after, she retained the ability to transpose letters and numbers automatically.

“My daughter worked in the Bodleian Library,” she says, “and one day, she mentioned she had been working on ‘J’ floor. ‘J’, I said: ‘10 floors down’. And she looked at me oddly and asked how I could have instantly known that.”

One codebreaker explicitly likened cryptography to crossword solving, pointing out that no matter how fierce the pressure they were under, the codebreakers had to train themselves to approach the problem coolly.

“Just imagine the codework in front of you is a crossword. If you had someone breathing down your neck saying: ‘You’ve got to get it done in five minutes’, it wouldn’t help at all.”

Wren and codebreaker Jean Valentine recalls how she got drawn into this secret world. “When I filled in my form,” she says, “they asked for hobbies, and I put ‘crossword puzzles’. They were looking for people who could think laterally.”

Just recently, another Bletchley veteran wrote to our crossword compiler complaining that if anything, the puzzles were getting a little too fiendish. Obviously the complaint has been taken very seriously. But on the other hand: shouldn’t it be regarded as the highest compliment that a puzzle compiler could possibly be paid?

And even if you don’t believe crosswords are good for us, the lively debates they always provoke must surely be beneficial.

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay (Aurum) is available for £18 plus £1.25 p & p from Telegraph Books (0844 871 1514 or books.telegraph.co.uk) Bletchley Park Museum (next to Bletchley railway station; 01908 640404; www.bletchleypark.org.uk) is open year round

(archive link)

[supranatural85]

Things to do in Milton Keynes

[gretavdr]

Bletchley Park

The imposing manor house above the lake doesn’t say much at all about what happened here during WW2.  The house had been bought by a developer who would have built a housing estate but the manor and 58 acres of land was purchased in 1938 by Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) for use in the event of war. Round about then, this was happening. Europe had…

[gamesatwork]

e439 — Nuts About Sound

AI topics on safety, transparency & generated content, VR & MR/XR stories on making music with virtual instruments, cracking walnuts & bitcoin wallets & more!

Photo by Raffaele Ravaioli on Unsplash Published 6 November 2023 Michael and Michael get together for a lively discussion on AI, VR, Mixed Reality, a bluetooth in a nutshell, and a locked bitcoin wallet among other topics. The co-hosts start off the episode with the #ProjectPrimrose video of the interactive dress.  This is right in line with the stories from the October podcasts.  Then they…