The Secret Life of Bletchley Park - Sinclair McKay (2010)
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.
I recently watched a documentary on BBC2 about the WW2 codebreakers, and my reaction to the fascinating subject was to immediately go to Amazon.co.uk and find book that would tell me more. This was the book I bought, and I am glad that I did. This really is a fascinating book, that lifts the veil on an extraordinary place and the dedicated men and women who spent the war years undertaking such crucial work. One of the things which both amazed and impressed me the most, was the level of secrecy that was needed, for Bletchley park to be able to exist at all. The thousands of people who worked there - kept silent - with each other, and with their families after the war - right up untill the 1980's. Additionally the people of the surrounding areas who provided "billets" for these hordes of Bletchley workers, not only kept quiet - but didn't even ask their boarders what it was they were doing up at the park. In the world we are living in now, such secracy is unimaginable. I must admit - some of the mathematical, engineery, code descriptions and details - went a tiny bit over my befuddled head - however this is a very accessible book, and certainly not academic or dry. Even the sections I found hardest to understand - and there were only a couple - were still strangely fascinating to read - and I know I have come away from the book with a much better understanding of code breaking than I would otherwise have ever had. The majority of the book however, and what makes it so readable, is about the people who worked there, the society girls, the brilliant ox-bridge minds, the factory workers, the romances, the dances and plays, the miserably cold huts and the revolting food.
I recently watched a documentary on BBC2 about the WW2 codebreakers, and my reaction to the fascinating subject was to immediately go to Amazon.co.uk and find book that would tell me more. This was the book I bought, and I am glad that I did. This really is a fascinating book, that lifts the veil on an extraordinary place and the dedicated men and women who spent the war years undertaking such crucial work. One of the things which both amazed and impressed me the most, was the level of secrecy that was needed, for Bletchley park to be able to exist at all. The thousands of people who worked there - kept silent - with each other, and with their families after the war - right up untill the 1980's. Additionally the people of the surrounding areas who provided "billets" for these hordes of Bletchley workers, not only kept quiet - but didn't even ask their boarders what it was they were doing up at the park. In the world we are living in now, such secracy is unimaginable. I must admit - some of the mathematical, engineery, code descriptions and details - went a tiny bit over my befuddled head - however this is a very accessible book, and certainly not academic or dry. Even the sections I found hardest to understand - and there were only a couple - were still strangely fascinating to read - and I know I have come away from the book with a much better understanding of code breaking than I would otherwise have ever had. The majority of the book however, and what makes it so readable, is about the people who worked there, the society girls, the brilliant ox-bridge minds, the factory workers, the romances, the dances and plays, the miserably cold huts and the revolting food.