Bletchley Park
The Secret Archives
By Sinclair McKay

Published by Aurum Press, in association with Bletchley Park
Dist. by Allen & Unwin
www.allenandunwin.com
RRP $49.99 in hard cover, in slip case with removable memorabilia
ISBN 9781781315347

Delving into this beautifully presented collector’s edition with its removable memorabilia is a bit like delving into Bletchley Park itself, full of secrets with its caches of documents slipped in between the pages.

There are some extraordinary facsimiles of original documents in this set – including some pages of (incomprehensible to me) workings by the remarkable Alan Turing (see the photo).

Another name that emerges in the collection is that of Ian Fleming, a young naval officer during WWII.

This is a delightful collection, showing us Bletchley Park in its many phases: as a country estate owned by Liberal MP Sir Herbert Leon, through its wartime requisition as a top secret code-breaking facility where the German Enigma code was cracked to its post-war dereliction and subsequent rescue as a museum whose visitor numbers have more than doubled in the past five years.

This edition features over 200 photographs plus the items of removable facsimile memorabilia.

It wasn’t until many years after the end of the Second World War that we heard about the work done at Bletchley Park. Since that time the story of Bletchley Park and its remarkable people have continued to fascinate.

Australian buyers can purchase the book set at this link: