Saving Bletchley Park

by Sue Black

  Johnmcleod, 28 January 2009, 21:35

  The Alvey programme had in fact funded much of the research that I had read about and built upon during my PhD, including the research of my PhD supervisor Professor Robin Whitty and his supervisor in the area of software measurement and that of several of my friends. What a coincidence! Brian had also been president of the BCS the year before I started my degree and maintained a keen interest in computer history. My partner Paul has a PhD in formal methods and similar interests, so it made for very interesting discussions.

  Brian Oakley and me, Epsom Downs, Surrey Brian had also spent many years producing documents relating to Bletchley Park. Towards the end of the afternoon, he took me up to his study to show me all of the work that he had done, including a month-by-month account of what had happened at Bletchley Park and a database of people who had worked there; this database formed the basis for the current “Roll of Honour” on the Bletchley Park website – an incomplete list of everyone that worked at Bletchley Park and its outstations during WWII: http://bit.ly/1KHq4DR

  Brian’s month-by-month account of what happened during the war was called “Sixty years ago at Bletchley Park” and was available for free as a monthly newsletter in the Mansion House (http://bit.ly/1IgcndJ). It appeared every month from July 1999 to August 2005. The account was also accessible via the Bletchley Park website and available in the Bletchley Park shop as The Bletchley Park War Diaries.

  What a great man, and what wonderful work to have done. We left at the end of the afternoon absolutely honoured to have spent a fabulous few hours with two really special people.

  In January 2009 I sent 468 tweets

  10

  A famous tweeter joins the campaign

  On the 3rd February 2009, I was sitting in the living room at my PC when I noticed that Stephen Fry was tweeting about being stuck in a lift at Centre Point in London. He had posted a photo of himself and the other people that he was stuck with in the hope that Twitter would help rescue them.

  I was always looking for influential people who could help raise awareness of the fact that Bletchley Park was operating on a financial knife-edge with no government funding. So, when I saw the photo I thought to myself, Hmmm . . . does Stephen Fry like Bletchley Park?

  I Googled “stephen fry bletchley park” and several hits appeared, including a quote from a few months earlier in which Stephen Fry, responding to a journalist’s request for comment about the state Bletchley Park was in, had eloquently condemned the lack of funding:

  “To me it is equivalent to letting Nelson’s Column fall down or Wellington’s victory arch crumble to dust. An outrage to think we have not the will nor the historical understanding to save it.”

  Fabulous! Stephen Fry knew and cared about Bletchley Park. I was on to a winner, I was sure. This seemed like it might be an ideal opportunity to draw some much-needed attention to Bletchley Park. I searched for @StephenFry on Twitter, and luckily he was following me, which meant I was able to send him a few direct messages (DMs). He was more likely to respond to a DM than a tweet, but he was also following thousands of people, so there was a good chance that he wouldn’t even see them. What the hell, I thought. What did I have to lose? Fingers crossed he would see my DMs and then maybe, maybe, tweet about Bletchley Park.

  I sent him three messages in total:

  Hi Stephen, I’m campaigning to save Bletchley Park. It would be really wonderful if you could tweet about them to raise awareness of their plight.

  The work done there by 10k people shortened WWII by 2 years, possibly saving 22mill lives. They have no govt funding and need money.

  Please help by drawing attention to them, I’m sure that if you tweeted it would make a real difference. Thank you so much.

  At the time Stephen Fry was being followed by 116,000 people. So if he was interested and tweeted about Bletchley Park, that meant that there were 116,000 potential recipients of the tweet. Not bad for a few seconds of work!

  It was getting late. I went to bed wondering if Stephen Fry would see my DMs and if he did what he would think. I knew that he must get many such requests every day, that there was a very slim chance that he would even see mine, and an even slimmer chance that he would actually respond. Still, it was worth a chance. I knew that he was interested in and cared about Bletchley Park – after all, he had spoken to the press fairly recently about the situation it was in.

  At about 11 the next morning, I got an email from Twitter:

  @StephenFry has DMed you

  and then another:

  @StephenFry has mentioned you in a tweet

  My first thought was, What! OMG! Let me have a look at this, what has he said?

  Stephen had tweeted about my savingbletchleypark.org blog and pointed people to the petition to save Bletchley Park on the No. 10 e-petition website.

  Stephen Fry

  @stephenfry

  #bpark You might want to sign the Save Bletchley Park petition. Read @Dr_Black’s reasons why on http://is.gd/ikEh – BP won us the war!

  10:11 AM – 4 Feb 09

  I immediately replied to Stephen:

  “Thank you! Thank you SO much Your tweet will really make a difference to Bletchley Park”

  Moments later I got a phone call from Kelsey Griffin at Bletchley Park. Everyone was thrilled that Stephen Fry had tweeted about the campaign – our conversation went something like this:

  Kelsey: “Stephen Fry has tweeted Save Bletchley Park!!!!”

  Me: “Yes!! Isn’t it amazing?! I wonder how many people will sign the petition now . . . ”

  Kelsey: “Maybe he would like to come for lunch at Bletchley Park – can you invite him?”

  Me: “Sure! What a great idea.”

  I DMed Stephen Fry again:

  Bletchley Park just phoned me. They would love to invite you for lunch at Bletchley Park, would you like to visit?

  Five minutes later I had a reply:

  I would absolutely love to, please thank them for inviting me

  Hundreds of people had already retweeted Stephen’s message, my Twitter ID, @Dr_Black, had trended on Twitter, and, as I found out the next day, I had 8,000 hits on my blog instead of the usual 50 or so. Wow!

  I continued my DM discussion with Stephen, he put Kelsey Griffin and me in touch with his PA, and a date for lunch was arranged. It was quite hard to calm down after all that excitement. I sat back at my computer and carried on with my emails for a bit, but it was too hard to concentrate. My mind was buzzing like crazy. I couldn’t believe that I had just had a private conversation with Stephen Fry (albeit over Twitter) and that he had tweeted a link to my Saving Bletchley Park blog.

  After I had finally calmed down I checked my email again. I had messages from people all over the world asking me about my campaign, offering support, and requesting more information. There was also a flurry of comments on my blog from supporters of Bletchley Park.

  My mother worked in a related military-support role, just down the road and “knew something was there” (at Bletchley) – so cool. I feel BP’s place in our world today is terribly underrated and the UK Gov should recognise BP as much as it does other key wartime monuments. I dropped into BP in 2002 to visit someone who rented an office there and was awestruck by it’s modest presence. Good luck to all involved. – AB

  Alan Bristow, 4 February 2009, 12:45

  Has Britain no respect for its history? This single most significant undertaking of any armed conflict. This IS history. For heavens sake Gordon, forget slipping the sly fiver to the investment bankers and invest in Britains (and the free worlds) heritage. This is something all Britons and allied countries should be immensely proud of!

  David Goll, 4 February 2009, 12:06

  Flabbergasted this is happening – all the millions being handed out to greedy/inept bankers, and something that epitomises what is actually great about this count
ry left to rot.

  Vince, 4 February 2009, 10:43

  Bletchley Park is so important for so many reasons. What a travesty it would be if it were allowed to rot away.

  Chris Dick, 4 February 2009, 10:17

  On that day my Twitter ID, @Dr_Black, was the most retweeted ID on Twitter, @StephenFry was second, and @Mashable third. This meant the message was really getting out there.

  You can see my excitement in the blog post I wrote later that month about the day:

  Stephen Fry Tweets “Save Bletchley Park”

  Sunday 22 February 2009

  On the evening of 3rd February I decided to send a tweet or two to Stephen Fry asking him if he would tweet about saving Bletchley Park, I went to bed afterwards and forgot all about it.

  At 10am the next morning I got an email saying that I had received a direct message from Stephen Fry. He said that he had sent out a tweet to all his followers! I checked Twitter to find this:

  Stephen Fry

  @stephenfry

  #bpark You might want to sign the Save Bletchley Park petition. Read @Dr_Black ‘s reasons why on http://is.gd/ikEh – BP won us the war! 2:11 AM Feb 4th from web

  This may not seem like a big thing for the campaign, but believe me, it’s massive! Stephen then had about 116 000 followers on Twitter, he now has 222 690. Twitter has been incredibly powerful in terms of spreading the word.

  Well, guess what happened? Everything went crazy! I had people emailing me from all over the world, and many people retweeted Stephen’s original tweet which meant that even more people got to hear about the situation that Bletchley Park finds itself in. I had 8000 hits on my blog and the petition to save Bletchley Park on the No. 10 Downing Street site went up by over 1000 signatures. A very unusual day :)

  I went to most retweeted person of the day, with Stephen Fry in second place. Thank you so much Stephen Fry and thank you so much Twitterers, you are really helping to save Bletchley Park.

  I was absolutely amazed. Through one very influential person on Twitter, the Saving Bletchley Park campaign had reached a whole new audience. It was a real turning point in the campaign and a great lesson for me about the value of seeking out influential people who were interested in the message I was trying to get across to everyone. I was learning how to conduct a social media campaign.

  I’m ashamed to be British

  A couple of weeks later, an opportunity came through that was too good to miss. I was asked to write a piece for the Daily Telegraph about Bletchley Park and my campaign. I had not written a piece for a national newspaper before so I was excited about the opportunity, but also apprehensive about my writing skills. I called upon my friend Judy Corbalis to help me and we met up for a quick coffee to discuss what I should include and how to structure the piece.

  I really wanted to get across how important Bletchley Park is and explain my theory that if Bletchley had been in another country, there was no way that it would be in this precarious situation. I found some information online about the Australian War Memorial and how it is treated with such respect by Australians, and I found out more about the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Why were Bletchley Park and The National Museum of Computing in the UK having such a difficult time getting the financial support they needed? It was wrong.

  Judy and I spent our lunch hour on the piece; I finished it off after lunch and sent it through. About an hour later, it was up online and already attracting comments.

  Save Bletchley Park: Why I’m ashamed to be British

  16 February 2009

  The Telegraph

  Bletchley Park is an example of British brains at its best and we must act to preserve it, writes Sue Black.

  Have you heard of Bletchley Park? It’s just north of London, where more than ten thousand men and women worked during WW2 to decode messages sent between the German forces, most notably by Hitler, and the German high command. The cracking of the codes, the use of the intelligence gained and the subsequent related actions of the Allies is said to have shortened WW2 by two years possibly saving an estimated 22 million lives.

  Bletchley Park is also the birthplace of the computer. The world’s first programmable, digital, electronic computer, Colossus, was invented and built by Tommy Flowers and his team at Bletchley Park and Dollis Hill during World War Two. It automated a critical part of the process of deciphering encrypted German messages.

  If all that work, carried out by thousands of dedicated people for years on end, had not happened many of us would not be here now. Thousands of us today had relatives working at Bletchley Park: many of us may not know it due to the Official Secrets Act, fortunately some of us do.

  Bletchley Park needs sustained government funding to preserve it. But then of course we’re in an economic downturn – so how could the government afford it?

  Well, here’s a comparison. In the short term Bletchley Park needs £10 million, which is a pittance compared to how many millions, or is it billions now, that have recently been given to the banks? And how much more than the original estimate is being spent by us on the Olympics?

  In Canberra, Australia, there stands the Australian War Memorial which is a place that every Australian citizen visits at least once in their lifetime to get an appreciation of the contribution made by Australians to the war effort.

  In California stands the Computer History Museum a national museum of great importance that is treasured by US citizens.

  The UK equivalent of these museums is Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing which is housed there.

  Bletchley Park is an example of British brains and British thinking at its best. Have we no national pride? Is the UK government ashamed of British achievements? Where is our debt of gratitude for the efforts of so many to achieve so much? In Britain we can’t even manage to preserve what we have.

  This is why I’m ashamed to be British. I hope you are too.

  The comments were interesting – some people were in support of the campaign, some were against, and some were just strange. But it was interesting to find out what the general public thought when reading my opinion piece. Of course it was great to read the supportive comments, like these ones:

  SAVE BLETCHLEY PARK . . . As an ex-GPO/BT engineer I remember spending many weeks at Bletchley Park training for my apprenticeship. At that time, in the 70’s, the Park had an air of mystery about it . . . we knew it was something to do with the war but none of my colleagues and myself knew what. To find out what an important and pivotal role it played adds to my fondness of it. It was the first time I stayed away without my parents, my first steps into manhood and the first time I drank to much . . . therefore you could say it played a pivitol role in my life as well as WW2. Don’t let this be lost.

  Paul, 17 February 2009, 02:43 AM

  Come on the British Government and the people. If you’re going to put a stop on the bonuses the banks were going to pay their employees then have the money redistributed to Bletchley. If it isn’t it should be a listed building for its heritage factor alone. I am appalled at the British lack of enthusiasm for OLD TECHNOLOGY.

  Amanda Reed, 17 February 2009, 02:51 AM

  But there were also comments such as this one:

  Yawn. Yet again The Telegraph is giving space to people who want to tell us that we stink because of some grievance or another.

  If you’re ashamed to be British, why bother preserving anything? Just more to be ashamed of really. Maybe you shouldn’t ask “Have we no national pride?” in the same article as one asking us not to have any pride.

  Pride goes beyond some gap in funding. The only person who should be ashamed is you.

  David, 17 February 2009, 02:59 AM

  I felt a bit embarrassed that someone was saying that to me. There were several comments even worse than this one, and since then I’ve had quite a
lot of negative comments as well as a lot of overwhelmingly positive and supportive ones. It is something that I, and everyone else who puts their head above the parapet, has to get used to. If you stand out from the masses, some people will feel the need to shoot you down, whoever you are and whatever you are doing. I’ve talked to quite a few people about this phenomenon. Being perhaps a bit naïve, it was one of the things that really surprised me, particularly as the campaign began to get more exposure. Why would someone who doesn’t know you at all behave as if they absolutely hate you? I was very bothered by this kind of behaviour to start with; it contrasted so starkly with the wonderful sense of connectivity and community that I’d found through Twitter and other social media channels. But, although I still don’t understand it, I’ve got used to dealing with it over the years. If you are in the public eye and have any sort of opinion about anything at all, someone will hate you and make sure that they let you know.

  One way that I have learnt to deal with this is whenever I feel confused and upset by someone’s opinion towards me, I look at all of the positive feedback I’ve had and comfort myself that the positive outweighs the negative. In this case, many more people were expressing support for Bletchley Park than were attacking me and my views, and that was what was important. Nil desperandum.

  Spent time at BP training at the CAA 20 years ago. Wasn’t until over 10 years later that I got to realise the importance of all those derelict wooden huts! I hope the powers that be and the public have the sense to save what is a very important part of our heritage.

  Nick B., 6 February 2009, 14:01