Enigma.

It has been a few days since I posted on this site but prompted by another blog called either This, that and the other, or Fandango, I am unsure as to which blog is prompting me to write which is rather fortuitous as the FOWC (Fandangos one word challenge) is enigma which pretty much sums up most of the things I attempt to do on the interweb.

My immediate thought when presented with the word Enigma was to think of the wartime code breaking establishment called Bletchley Park which was a stately home near Milton Keyes, Buckinghamshire in England during the second world war.

The Germans had a machine called Enigma which could change a message by turning wheels mechanically which is effectively what computers do now to encrypt things to keep them safe but we managed to get hold of one of their machines which was taken from a sinking submarine.

Many very talented people went to Bletchley Park, which was very hush hush at the time, they were told to keep a ten shilling note about their person at all times so as to be ready should they be called at short notice and that if asked where they were going to say they were joining Captain Ridleys shooting party.

One of these very clever individuals was Alan Turing and together they broke the German codes and, it is said shortened the war by perhaps two years.

As the establishment was under Official Secrets Act people who worked there were forbidden to speak of having worked there, so much so that people even got married to each other and did not admit to each other they had worked there until many years later.

Rather sadly after the war Alan Turing who is credited with effectively being the inventor of  the modern computer was prosecuted in 1952 for being homosexual which was illegal in those days and committed suicide in 1954.

He was never given proper recognition for the work he did at Bletchley Park which is somewhat of an Enigma.