#savingbletchley

Captain Jerry Roberts – Bletchley Park codebreaker

Here I am 9 years ago with the wonderful Captain Jerry Roberts, Bletchley Park codebreaker, at my birthday party. What an amazing man ❤️

One of the hardest things about running the campaign to save Bletchley Park is making friends with incredible people and then losing them 😭

Check out Jerry’s book Lorenz

#bletchleypark #codebreakers #testery #savingbletchley

From 2003 to 2017 – Saving Bletchley Park, the Women of Station X, Stephen Fry, the Imitation Game and the Duchess of Cambridge #Bpark
I often get asked about Bletchley Park and my connection with it. Here are a few links that give an overview of my 14 year fascination and involvement.

 

Finding out about the women who worked there is how I first got interested in Bletchley Park in 2003, I got funding for an oral history project “The Women of Station X” to record the memories of the women who worked there:

 

 

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then I found out that Bletchley Park might have to close so I started a campaign to save it. The whole story is captured in my book:

 

US Amazon – Saving Bletchley Park

 

UK Amazon – Saving Bletchley Park

 

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and some of the highlights on my blog from 2008, read from the bottom up to get an overview of how my campaign started and what we did including getting Stephen Fry involved:
 
Here’s my old school 2008 blog: http://savingbletchleypark.org/

 

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I spoke about my life and the campaign last December at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA

 

 

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It’s been so wonderful to see the recognition of Bletchley Park growing over the years since the campaign started with books like Andrew Hodges – Alan Turing: The Enigma getting recognition and films being made like The Imitation Game starring great Hollywood actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley.

 

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Also who could forget the visit of the Duchess of Cambridge to Bletchley Park whose grandmother and great aunt worked at Bletchley Park.

 

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Have a look at these links and then comment below if you have any questions, or @ me on Twitter @Dr_Black, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

 

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Wonderful Bletchley Park work by year 6 Girls at Surbiton High School 

I was invited to Surbiton High School earlier this year to speak about my book Saving Bletchley Park. The year 6 girls and teachers went on a trip to Bletchley Park a few weeks ago. Today I was invited back to see all the work they had done and hear about their trip. They had made Anderson shelters, morse code machines, cardboard suitcases and had dressed up in 1940s clothes, it was fabulous. Cross curricula activity at its best 😀👍🎉

    
    
    
    
    
     

Saving Bletchley Park – book launch at Waterstones Piccadilly 

Last night was one of the best nights of my life! My book Saving Bletchley Park was launched at Waterstones Piccadilly in central London. It was an amazing evening with speeches, a reading from my book, tears, drinks, great conversation and lots of laughter 😀 Thanks a million to everyone that came and made it such a special night ❤️   

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
   

Saving Bletchley Park at Chester Literary Festival

Last night Steve Colgan and I gave a @savingbletchley book talk at Chester Literary Festival. We travelled up together on the train from London together during the afternoon. 

 
Arriving at Chester station around 5pm 😀

  

After dropping our bags at the hotel we made our way over to Chester Town Hall. 

  

I was so excited as it was the first time I’d given a talk at a literary festival, and the first time I’d read from my book in public. 

  
Steve was great to be on stage with. 

  
And the audience were great too, they asked lots of good questions. 

  

Questions about the veterans, social media, crowdfunding, cryptography, Enigma, computing and much more 😀

   It was a very enjoyable 90 minutes. 

  Afterwards Steve and I took a selfie

  Then walked through a very beautiful Chester city centre. 

   

  

 Before arriving at Hickory’s restaurant by the river for some delicious ribs 👍

   

 And frozen yogurt 😀

This morning we made our way to Chester station before parting ways, Steve going back off to London

  And me to Manchester, catching up on a bit of reading and knitting on the way 

   

   

Thanks Mark Carline for the pics not take by me 😀👍