Saving Bletchley Park

Marco Werman talks with Sue Black, who has waged a campaign to save Bletchley Park.

The British site was the location of an important message decoding center during World War II, and also played an important role in the development of modern computers.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: Now, here is another quiz for you. Name the place where Britain broke Germany’s enigma code during World War II. Well, it’s Bletchley Park, an estate and mansion in England. During the war, it was a headquarters of Britain’s top intelligence and code-breaking operation. It was there that secret German-coded messages were intercepted and deciphered. Decades later the mansion had fallen into disrepair and faced an uncertain future. Enter Sue Black; she’s a Senior Research Associate in software engineering at University College, London, and she’s been working for years to help save Bletchley Park. Black said she was surprised when she first visited the site.

Sue Black: I thought when I first went there that it would be quite a small place and that, maybe, I don’t know, 50 people worked there. But in fact, it was more than 10,000 people working there over the course of the 2nd World War – working there as code breakers and machine operators.

Werman: Give us a picture of the scene there. It’s a gorgeous Victorian manor in its code breaking heyday in World War II. Describe what we would have seen going on at Bletchley Park.

Black: Well, there’s a big mansion house but it is part of a 50-acre site. There’s loads of huts all around with code breakers working inside them; lots of people riding around on bicycles. Dispatch riders coming in with messages and taking them in to be decoded. Churchill used to go up there now and again to check out what was happening and have high level talks with the code breakers there.

Werman: And crucially, the code breakers at Bletchley Park got to the bottom of the so-called ‘German enigma machine’. That was pretty key to the end of the war?

Black: Yeah, absolutely. So, the work done there was said by Eisenhower, actually, to have shortened the war by 2 years. So, there was the bomb machines that were used to crack the enigma cipher and the Colossus machine which was invented by a British engineer called Tommy Flowers, built to help in the code breaking efforts but also became the world’s first programmable digital computer.

Werman: Well, that actually is a good way to bring us up to date because this kind of where your interest in saving Bletchley Park comes in. Explain.

Black: Yeah, absolutely. So, I went up there for a meeting, probably about 7 years ago now and, at that time, found out from the Director that Bletchley might have to close because they didn’t have any money. They didn’t get government funding or industry funding. Their main funding came from people going to visit and he was really worried that they would have to close.

Werman: Right. And it’s a museum, right? That’s why people…

Black: And it’s a museum, yes. So, you know, I thought that was outrageous, that it shouldn’t have to close considering the amazing stuff that happened there.

Werman: Right.

Black: So, I started a campaign with computer scientists in the U.K. and that raised the profile a bit. Then, I started using Twitter and Social Media and got people like Stephen Fry involved in that.

Werman: The actor. And now, Google is involved. Tell us how and why.

Black: Yeah. That’s so cool! Some of Alan Turing’s… I don’t know if everyone knows about Alan Turing but he was one of the code-breakers that were there.

Werman: Yeah. The mathematical genius who played a huge role in the code breaking.

Black: That’s right, absolutely. And the father of computer science worked there as one of the code-breakers. Some of his papers were up for auction at Christie’s Auction House in London, and they were up for auction at 300,000 to 500,000 Pounds. I, along with several other people really wanted Bletchley Park to be able to buy them, you know, to put on exhibition there. So, I got in contact with one of the Google Vice-Presidents and, coincidentally, the next day, a guy called Sammy Machin – he works with Google – tweeted me (he got in touch via Twitter). He said he wanted to help with the Turin papers and Bletchley Park. Basically, Simon worked over about 4 or 5 days to raise $100,000 from Google to buy the Turin papers for Bletchley Park. So, you know all credit to him. He did an amazing job and that relationship’s continuing. And so, Google are getting more involved with Bletchley Park and they’re working together now.

Werman: So what does the future look like for Bletchley Park now? You saw it a couple of years ago possibly going broke, in a way, and now what?

Black: I had a chat with the Director and one of the guys from Google a few months ago. The Director was saying, “You don’t need to talk about saving Bletchley Park any more Sue, it’s saved!”

Werman: Congratulations.

Black: [Laughs] I guess I kind of knew but, you know, now that he actually, directly said that to me and they won’t have to shut now. But, of course, they’ve had lack of investment over decades, so they still need lots of money to turn the site into a world-class museum, which it should be. So, if anyone wants to give them some money, please give them money. It’s saved, so it won’t close, but they still need quite a lot of money.

Werman: Sue Black is the Founder and CEO of the Go To Foundation which promotes computer science to the general public. She started a campaign to save Bletchley Park. Thanks very much Sue for speaking with us.

Black: Thank you.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.