A Day in the Park …

Phew!

THAT was a job and a half!!

This lot’s the picture I took on Sunday, when Andy and Sue took me along on a day trip to Bletchley Park; home of Britain’s code-breakers, during the war.

Yes, I know I’ve put a few up, already …

But I couldn’t not show you as many as possible.

Including one of the staff records still held — and on display — at Bletchley Manor, itself; which included a Miss E. L. R. Downie, listed as a Naval Section linguist, in Block B.

Lord knows if she is or was a direct relative — long story, there, trust me — but it’s nice to see the family name there; I don’t know what she was doing, though.

I mean, apart from translating German naval messages, obviously, once they’d been decoded, obviously …

You know, one of these day‘s, I swear I’ll think these statements through, before I write ’em down!

But it sounds like she’d been in Hut Eight, or Hut Four.

•••••

Oy!

But at any rate, it was fascinating to see all of the proverbial kit and caboodle of Bletchley’s involvement in the war.

Including the Enigma machines they had on site.

Amazing to see.

If I’ve understood it correctly, it was a very complicated code wheel.

You know, those toys, almost, that let you send secret messages to your friends, when you’re a kid?

You know, you have to set ‘A’ to, say ‘T’, to encode a message you want to send? (Which is called plain-text, by the by … )

In the case of the Enigma, an ‘A’ would get turned into a ‘T’.

Then the ‘A’ wheel would take a step forward to b, for example.

The next wheel in — like a three wheel code wheel — turns that ‘A’ into a ‘T’, and then — then — passes it on to the next wheel.

Which turns it into a … a … oh, I don’t know … a ‘Z’, for example!

Phew!!

With each wheel clicking forward whenever you press a key on the typewriter all this is attached to.

And known of the letters on the wheels being in alphabetical order.

All all of those settings — and wheels — changing every day. The original Enigma’s used three wheels at a time; but came with five, so you could really complicate the job of anyone trying to decode your message.

Or that was the German theory, anyway …

The Lorenz machines were even more complex, if I’ve understood it correctly …

Which is why the Heath Robinson and Colossus machines; faster and more efficient versions of the Bombe machines, originally designed by the Polish cipher section, and substantially improved by the Bletchley Park crew.

I could go on for hours about this stuff!

I could, really!

But I’ll leave it there, I think.

But will encourage you to at least head over and visit Bletchley Park; it’s a fascinating piece of history.

Oh, and one last point; from what Andy told me, on Sunday, the image of the Spitfire used by the BNP, in their recent publicity … had a Polish pilot.

Laugh?

I nearly widdled meself!