February 2015 Bursaries for disadvantaged schools have Been added to Bletchley Park’s expanding education programme Winton Global Investment Management is funding a pilot bursary scheme to allow free school trips to Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park welcomes more than 9,000 schoolchildren every year to its thriving education programme. The bursaries will be available to schools which might be most in need of financial support. Each bursary will cover the cost of coach hire and 40 children attending...
Feb 27, 2015•3 min
February 2015 This month best-selling author, journalist and TV presenter Ben Macintyre talks to us about his latest book, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Ben spoke to us after his sell out talk last year in our Bletchley Park Presents lecture series. Tickets are on sale now for the 2015 talks which already includes Michael Smith, Victor Madeira, Jerry White, Taylor Downing and Sinclair Mackay, with more speakers to be announced soon. Then we bring you this month’s main e...
Feb 11, 2015•56 min
January 2015 The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch & Kiera Knightley, has been nominated for 8 Oscar’s Best Picture Benedict Cumberbatch for Actor in a Leading Role Kiera Knightley for Actress in a Supporting Role Directing Film Editing Music (Original Score) Production Design Writing (Adapted Screenplay) The 87th Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on February the 22nd 2015. Trailer, Music & Picture: © Black Bear Pictures/Studio Canal #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #AlanTuri...
Jan 21, 2015•3 min
January 2015 This month we are celebrating a cast of thousands who all made Crucial Contributions. Back in November, the families of the three Polish codebreaking geniuses, whose work proved invaluable in the breaking of Enigma, visited Bletchley Park. We take a look ahead at what’s new in 2015 with Bletchley Park’s Director of Learning and Collections, Victoria Worpole. A memorial plaque has been unveiled at the site of Bletchley Park’s largest outstation at Eastcote, where Bombe machines were ...
Jan 18, 2015•58 min
December 2014 Bletchley Park Podcast – 2014 Christmas Special. 2014 has been a landmark year at Bletchley Park. It’s seen the transformation of the site, returning it to its wartime glory with phase one of the restorations. Royalty returned with not one but two Veterans in the family this time, and the stranger than fiction story of Alan Turing hit the silver screen. Join podcast host Katherine and producer Mark as they take you on a virtual trip around the park and back through the year to hear...
Dec 23, 2014•1 hr
December 2014 It’s been an extraordinary year at Bletchley Park and the icing on the cake would be to reach a record-breaking attendance level of 200,000 visitors before 31 December 2014. We can do it with the help of our listeners. The 200,000th visitor will be celebrated with prizes and greetings from Bletchley Park VIPs. Picture: ©mcfontaine #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #AlanTuring, #ImitationGame
Dec 15, 2014•2 min
December 2014 This month we again have more exclusive content for you from The Imitation Game. Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Alan Turing in the film, tells us about how nerve wracking, special and even ghostly it was filming scenes at Bletchley Park. We also take you to the opening of The Imitation Game, The Exhibition, which was held at the Home of The Codebreakers with a special screening of the film. BBC 3 Counties Jane Killick and our own roving podcast reporter Astrid Specht speak to some...
Dec 11, 2014•1 hr
November 2014 With only a couple of weeks till the UK release of THE IMITATION GAME, we can now bring you more exclusive interviews with the cast and crew. Our roving reporter Astrid Specht braved the rain with patient fans at The Odeon Leicester Square for the London Film Festival premiere last month. Podcast host Katherine Lynch sits down with Director Morton Tyldum, screen writer Graham Moore and actors Allen Leech and Matthew Beard. We also bring you what was a very special moment for all of...
Nov 01, 2014•46 min
October 2014 This month we come to you from the red carpet at The Odeon Leicester Square for the premiere of THE IMITATION GAME. The movie based on the life and work of Codebreaker Alan Turing was picked to open the prestigious 2014 BFI London Film Festival. To celebrate the film’s release in UK cinemas on the 14th of November, Bletchley Park will open a major new exhibition, taking visitors behind the scenes of this highly anticipated movie. We’ll bring you more on that next month, now, though,...
Oct 13, 2014•50 min
October 2014 To celebrate the release of THE IMITATION GAME in UK cinemas on 14 November, Bletchley Park will open a major new exhibition, taking visitors behind the scenes of the highly anticipated movie. The exhibition will open on Tuesday 4 November with an exclusive preview screening of the film for a select audience at Bletchley Park. The same evening, this vibrant heritage attraction will preview a major new exhibition all about the making of the film, in the very room where the bar scenes...
Oct 09, 2014•3 min
September 2014 In this final highlight from last year’s sell-out day of talks, Codebreakers’ Legacy, Dr. Joel Greenberg talks about the vitally important work of another lesser known figure from GC&CS, Gordon Welchman. Welchman designed changes to Alan Turing’s Bombe Machine which was used throughout the war to find the daily settings for Enigma. He also drew up the organisational plan for Bletchley Park which ultimately would enable it to become a “Codebreaking Factory”. Joel is a Guide &am...
Oct 01, 2014•35 min
September 2014 As part of our annual Veteran’s Reunion this year there was a fly past by a Hurricane of the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. 14,533 Hurricanes had been built by the end of World War 2, but sadly, today, there are only 12 still airworthy worldwide; only 6 of those in UK. The BBMF is proud to operate two of these historically important and rare aircraft. For more information on The BBMF please go to http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/ The beautiful picture accompanying this clip wa...
Sep 23, 2014•2 min
September 2014 This month we bring you a special episode of the Bletchley Park Podcast, from the Annual Veterans' Reunion. 2014 is a landmark year for Bletchley Park, marking not only 75th anniversary of the Government Code and Cypher School getting its vital war work underway, but also the completion of £8 million worth of much-needed restoration, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. At this year’s reunion many of the Veterans saw those renovations for the first time. Bletchley Park's CEO, I...
Sep 15, 2014•56 min
September 2014 As well as marking the 75th anniversary of the Government Code and Cypher School getting its vital war work underway, this year’s annual Veterans’ Reunion will give many their first chance to see how Bletchley Park has been transformed. 2014 is a landmark year for the Bletchley Park Trust, marking not only 75 years since the Codebreakers got cracking on the task of breaking enemy codes and ciphers, but also the completion of a much-needed £8 million restoration project, supported ...
Sep 04, 2014•6 min
September 2014 Professor Jack Copeland talks about ‘one of his greatest heroes’ Tommy Flowers, from his early life & career leading to working with the Bletchley Park Codebreakers. Jack explains the task faced when in mid-1942 the German High Command started to use a new encryption device, the Lorenz SZ40/42. The attack on Tunny, as it was dubbed by GC&CS, would involve some of the greatest codebreakers we had, Alan Turing, Bill Tutte & Max Newman. It would culminate in Tommy’s great...
Sep 02, 2014•45 min
August 2014 In July, as part of the Bletchley Park Presents series of talks, four women whose diverse roles within the Government Code & Cypher School during World War Two give a rare insight into the inner workings of this top secret organisation. One of those women was WREN Gwendoline Page who worked first in the Naval Section at Bletchley Park, indexing U-boat signals & later on the Japanese vessels index based in Colombo. After her talk, at the end of a very long day, she was still k...
Aug 17, 2014•20 min
August 2014 This month’s episode is all about Inspiring Women. We first take you to the launch of McAfee’s Cyber Security Exhibition and Computer Learning Zone which was held in the ballroom. The focus is on Online Safety for all ages, but especially children, as well as encouraging more women to Cyber Security. We have highlights of the speeches from McAffee’s Ross Allen & Raj Samani, Natalie Black of The Cabinet Office & Bletchley Park Trust Chairman Sir John Scalett, as well as interv...
Aug 10, 2014•59 min
August 2014 As the centenary of World War One is marked, Bletchley Park looks back at the early intelligence career of one of its lesser-known geniuses. In this extract, recorded at the Codebreaker’s Legacy Talks in November 2013, bestselling author and Bletchley Park Trustee Michael Smith charts the World War One service of John Tiltman, Bletchley Park's Chief Cryptographer, who was awarded the Military Cross fighting in the trenches. After being badly wounded in the Battle of Arras he transfer...
Aug 03, 2014•6 min
July 2014 On 26 and 27 July 1939 one of the most important events in the history of intelligence took place in the woods outside Warsaw. Just three weeks before the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) moved to its War Station at Bletchley Park, its Head, Alastair Denniston, and its Chief Cryptanalyst, Dilly Knox, travelled to Warsaw to meet their Polish and French equivalents to share all they knew about Enigma. At a commemorative ceremony in Warsaw held earlier this month, BBC Securit...
Jul 24, 2014•4 min
July 2014 HRH The Duchess of Cambridge visited Bletchley Park on the 18th of June to mark the officially opening of the 8.5 million pound restorations, but she also had a much more personal reason for her visit as both her paternal grandmother & great aunt worked in Hut 16 at The Government Codes and Cipher School during World War 2. Lady Marion Body worked alongside the twins, Valerie and Mary Glassborow and one of the highlights of the Royal Visit was when the Princess sat down with Lady B...
Jul 17, 2014•22 min
July 2014 This month we take you behind the scenes during HRH The Duchess of Cambridge’s visit on 18 June, meeting the Veteran who worked with her grandmother and some of those involved in the transformation of Bletchley Park. Valerie Glassborow, The Duchess of Cambridge’s paternal grandmother, worked as a Foreign Office Civilian, towards the end of the war, alongside her twin sister, Mary, in Hut 16. They went on to marry the Middleton brothers. But before that, they shared a very special momen...
Jul 10, 2014•55 min
July 2014 This September, Bletchley Park Presents Guy Burt and Sarah Harding, the creative partnership which brought us the second series of the hit ITV drama, The Bletchley Circle. As part of the prestigious Bletchley Park Presents lecture series, Guy will tell the story behind this ripping yarn, exploring how he created the strong female characters and why he based their lasting bond at Bletchley Park during World War Two. Sarah Harding, Director of the second two-part story in series two of T...
Jul 08, 2014•4 min
June 2014 McAfee, part of Intel Security, today announced the official opening of its international Cyber Security Exhibition and Computer Learning Zone at Bletchley Park, as part of its five-year collaborative partnership with the home of the World War Two Codebreakers. Sir John Scarlett gave a speech on the impact and importance of Bletchley Park, online safety and the role of women in Cyber Security. Picture: ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #enigma, #McAfee, #AudioMo,...
Jun 30, 2014•7 min
June 2014 On Wednesday 18 June, Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge visited Bletchley Park to mark completion of the eight million pound, Heritage Lottery Fund supported restoration project. This uniquely historic site has been restored to its wartime glory, enabling visitors to experience what it was like for the Codebreakers who worked here and creating a permanent and fitting tribute to those extraordinary men and women. Among the honoured guests was Nick Coffer from BBC Three Countie...
Jun 25, 2014•1 hr
June 2014 The transformation of Bletchley Park is now complete & on the 18th of June, HRH The Duchess of Cambridge will visit to launch the completed restoration. In this month’s episode we take you inside Code breaking Huts 3 and 6 & the new Block C Visitor Centre with the first people to see them restored to their wartime glory; the Veterans themselves. We join RAF Veteran Sergeant Bernard Morgan when he met his modern day equivalent, RAF Aerospace Battle Manager, Flight Lieutenant Vik...
Jun 10, 2014•41 min
June 2014 The importance of Bletchley Park’s role in the D-Day deception should not be underestimated. Messages decrypted at Bletchley Park showed that the feint had been swallowed whole, leading Germany to believe that the invasion would be at the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy. Katherine Lynch talked to Bletchley Park’s Senior Archivist, Richard Lewis, and historian and founding member of the Bletchley Park Trust, Peter Westcombe. Picture: ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com #BPark, #Bletchleypark,...
Jun 06, 2014•5 min
May 2014 The Duchess of Cambridge will visit Bletchley Park, on Wednesday 18 June 2014 to mark the completion of the year-long restoration project, which has restored the site to its World War Two appearance. Her Royal Highness will view the restored location, tour the WW2 Codebreaking Huts and will hear about the achievements of the Codebreakers whose work is said to have helped shorten the war by two years. During the visit, Her Royal Highness will meet Codebreaker veterans who worked at the G...
May 30, 2014•6 min
May 2014 Bestselling author & Bletchley Park Trustee, Michael Smith discusses the life & work of John Tiltman, whom many consider may have been Britain’s greatest ever code breaker. For these highlights we have concentrated on the lesser known parts of Tiltman’s life, both before & after his time at Bletchley Park. This talk was recorded at last year’s sell-out day of talks, Codebreakers’ Legacy. If you would like to attend a similar event in the Bletchley Park Presents series, then ...
May 29, 2014•32 min
May 2014 Bletchley Park CEO Iain Standen has told a new support hub for businesses how focusing on the fascinating story of World War Two Codebreaking helped transform Bletchley Park from a ramshackle, derelict site into a vibrant heritage attraction. Velocity, a new growth hub for ambitious small and medium-sized enterprises across the South East Midlands, was launched in the newly-restored Block C Visitor Centre at Bletchley Park on Friday 23 May. It will help businesses unlock their potential...
May 23, 2014•6 min
May 2014 When Elizabeth Marshall, nee Tatham, was recruited to Bletchley Park in 1944, she was told “This is a very, very secret place. You must never breathe a word of what you do here.” Every one of the ten thousand or so men and women who worked for the Government Code and Cypher School, a mixture of military and civilians, was sworn to lifelong secrecy. During a visit to Bletchley Park, Elizabeth recalled “We were told ‘your family and your friends must not know.’ We sat there absolutely ago...
May 16, 2014•4 min
