Bletchley Park was the place where one of the most famous and critical wartime achievements took place: the cracking of Germany's "Enigma" code, which included their most important military communications. This country house in the Buckinghamshire countryside was home to Britain's most brilliant mathematical minds, such as Alan Turing, and the setting for major technological advances - marking the birth of modern computing. The military codes deciphered there were decisive for the outcome of both the Battle of the Atlantic and the war in North Africa.

But, although much has been written about the scientists and the codebreaking, both in fiction and non-fiction - from Robert Harris and Ian McEwan to Turing's biography by Andrew Hodges - what about the thousands of men and women who lived and worked there during the war? What was life like for them - in a peculiar, secret area between civilians and the military?

The book by Sinclair McKay is the first history for the general reader about life at Bletchley Park, as well as an astonishing collective work of reminiscences from individuals who are now in their eighties - from skating on the frozen lake in the gardens (a dejected Angus Wilson, the novelist, once fell through) - to the young Roy Jenkins, who had no talent for codebreaking, and pranks at the neighboring hostels - and the unrelenting secrecy that meant friends working in adjacent huts knew nothing of each other's work.

Pages: 368, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm