Diary summary week ending 17th March 2024

[candleflame]

RTL that really interesting about the square and Thomas Brown. I’m currently re reading one of the books on my shelf about Bletchley Park and enigma and the code books.

[River Tyne Lass]

What is the title of your book, Candleflame?  'Seizing the Enigma' by David Kahn  is a very good read and Tommy Brown is written about in this.  It is hard even to imagine that level of bravery.
And what a responsibility those who worked at Bletchley Park bore on their shoulders!

I've not long since finished work and am feeling so very tired now.  I'll have to up again at the crack of dawn again tomorrow.  I saw someone dressed up in a Green outfit at the bus station and this reminded me it is St Patrick's Day.  The second bus was very busy tonight for a Sunday.

[candleflame]

What is the title of your book, Candleflame?  'Seizing the Enigma' by David Kahn  is a very good read and Tommy Brown is written about in this.  It is hard even to imagine that level of bravery.
And what a responsibility those who worked at Bletchley Park bore on their shoulders!

This one is called ‘ The Secret Life of Bletchley Park’ by Sinclair McKay. The other one I have is also by him and is ‘ The Secret Listeners’. That one is about the Y service . Your library may well have both to borrow. The writer has a particular style such that it can be a bit repetitive on some subjects, but they are still good to read as he’s got quotes from veterans and from biographies that the more famous folk involved have written .

[radstockjeff]

Secret Life, a fascinating insight to those dark days and utter secrecy of the operation. Bought it as a follow up to a visit a few years back.

[River Tyne Lass]

Thanks for these book recommendations Candleflame and Jeff.  I will keep these in mind for when I finish what I am reading at the present.
Ooh! You have visited Bletchley Park, Jeff?
I know we are now onto another week, but I would be interested to hear your impressions of this place either one this thread or the current one.

[radstockjeff]

Bletchley Park. We visited about ten years ago. I can't remember why, because it is a fair old distance from Radstock just for a day out.- it must have been based on a recommendation.
We thoroughly enjoyed the visit, there was so much to see and get our minds around the utter secrecy about the place during the War and for many years after.
Well worth a visit.  You may want to get a copy of the Shire Library booklet  "Bletchley Park The Code Breakers of Staion X." (Michael Smith), before you go and get a bit of the historical background to the place and its activities.
rj

[MollyC]

Many years ago I read a huge book also by David Kahn entitled simply The Codebreakers which was later re-issued in a reduced size.  A complete history of codes, from early days.  The original had an appendix about Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B, found in the palace of Minos, Crete, which he eventually discovered to be an early form of Greek.

More recently I have much enjoyed The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox (Profile, 2014) setting out the stories of three people involved with Linear B.  Sir Arthur Evans published a small amount of the excavated evidence and sat on the rest for 40 years.  Alice Kober is a little known American who may well have beaten Ventris to it, but for her untimely death in 1950.  Ventris solved the puzzle officially in 1952, and then died in an unexplained car accident in 1956.

The Knossos tablets contain personal names and details we would love to find from only 150 years ago.
"... No epic poems, no romances, no tales of gods.. " but Kober predicted "Mr X delivered 100 cattle to Mr Y on 10th June 1400 BC".

[River Tyne Lass]

Those books sound very interesting Molly.  It is marvelous that there were and are such clever people about who can work out such important codes and puzzles.
How awful that Ventris died in an unexplained car accident or was it an accident we might wonder.  Or did he know too much?
Incidentally, I saw a front page recruitment ad from MI6 on the free Metro paper on the bus to work the other day.(Monday)😯  I think I recall that they required that applicants have to have an interest in other cultures  .. nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

[KGarrad]

Traffic chaos today!
Roads closed for the visit of Queen Camilla, who will be conferring City status on Douglas.

It's affecting my usual coffee morning with a small group of friends.
And I will have to delay a trip to Tesco until tomorrow.