Bletchley Park

We visited Bletchley Park over the Easter break. For those of you who don't know, Bletchley was the centre of all signal intelligence and code breaking during WW2 in England. It was the place where they decrypted all the German messages and then sent the intelligence back into the field. It was also the place where the world's first programmable computer was born.

There wasn't much to see in Bletchley, a few old manor houses and lots of run-down barracks. However, the guided tour was great and the man in charge (a real boffin in a bad suit) certainly knew his stuff and told a great story.

Anyone with a remote interest in WW2, or computing, or anything nerdy or geeky or boffiny should give it a look.

A great read of fiction/non-fiction which deals a lot with the work carried out at Bletchley is Neal Stephenson's 'Cryptinomicron'.



They had a replica of the U-boat from which they stole a working enigma machine. The Harrier GR8 is real though ;)

Here is what the world's first progammable computer looked like. They have rebuilt a replica based on the original photos and drawings. Naturally, it was called 'Colossus'!