Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is in Bletchley (no surprise), which is near Milton Keynes. It was purchased by the government in 1939 to house the top-secret Code and Cipher unit. Near a train station which runs to London (Euston) and what amounted to main roads at the time, it was deemed an ideal location. The first group of mathematicians and top code breakers came up here ostensibly on a "shooting party" complete with a cook from the Savoy Hotel!

During the war, over 8,000 people worked here in one capacity or another. The big challenge was to break the codes sent by the Germans using "Enigma" machines. These were commercially available before the war, so the Allies knew how they worked but cracking the code was a challenge. The machines worked on the simple process of substitution e.g., the letter A changes to the letter D in the cipher. The Enigma basically complicates this process by

continuing the substitutions by means of a 3 rotors each with 26 settings. In the end there are 15 billion billion possible settings. So, these ciphers are not the sort that a person can work by hand!

Two things helped the English (aided by the Polish, who had been busily working on the project before the war, not liking how things looked in Germany). 1. the Engima can never use the actual letter as a cipher for itself (A can never be represented as A) and 2. The Germans tended to use certain stock phrases.

At Bletchley Park, mathematicians and other scientists worked out how to test what possible combination of rotors and substitutions would lead to solving particular messages using this machine (not a computer), called a Bombe (after the Polish prototype, the Bomba).

By the end of the war, there was a whole room full of these machines running 24 hours a day operated by Wrens (Women's Royal Navel Service). One of the great minds behind the Bombe was Cambridge mathematician Alan Turing. It is reckoned that the war was shortened by about 2 years thanks to the work of the code-breakers.

The Germans used a different system, the Lorenz cipher, for their top-level communications and longer term planning. This uses a radio teleprinter system, which sounds like (but is different from) morse code only sped up considerably. The Allies had never seen a Lorenz cipher, so they had no idea how it worked yet they had to find a way to decode the messages. They were aided in this by a mistake made by the Germans. When a message was not received properly, the operator sent the same message again using the same settings on his Lorenz machine (a no-no), except that he shortened the 4000 character message by about 500 characters (using short forms of words); these transmissions helped the mathematicians work out the code.

They developed this machine:

the first semi-programmable electronic computer to help decode the messages.

The versions of the Bombe and the Colossus seen in these photos from Bletchley Park are rebuilt versions according to plans and photos only released in recent decades. The war-time versions of these machines have (supposedly) been destroyed.

English Christmas traditions

Mulled wine and mince tarts are the staples of the season. I miss eggnog, which is not sold here. I haven't seen any signs of shortbread or gingerbread cookies just the traditional fruit Christmas cake, Christmas pudding and mulled wine.

Last Sunday we had a 9 lessons and carols service in the evening at the parish. It was so cold!! With outside temperatures hovering just below the 0 degrees Celsius and a church with a vast high ceiling, it was pretty chilly. Let's just say almost everyone was wearing coats and that's with the heat on. Although I'm not a fan of mulled wine, a warm drink hit the spot afterwards and I do love a mince tart.

Christmas seems just the little bit less commercial and tacky here in the UK. Yes, the mall is crazy busy but not quite as over-the-top as in North America. But as our English friends tell us, everything American eventually comes across the pond.

This is our gingerbread house: smaller than the ones in kits at home, like everything else in England!

Happy Christmas! (They don't say "Merry" over here).

Our English Christmas Tree

Advent in the UK

I've noticed a few differences between Canada and the UK in the run-up to Christmas. In the neighbourhoods fewer people put Christmas lights on their homes. And they call the strings of mini lights, "fairy lights," which I think sounds rather nice.

On the High Street, the shops have live Christmas trees (with fairy lights) attached to the walls above the shop windows, i.e., at the level of the second story. (The blue shape above is an alarm system.)

There are live Christmas trees for sale but not nearly as many as back home. Wreaths are popular: of evergreens, holly and some times ivy. Interestingly, there are also wreaths in the shape of crosses!

The Advent candles at church are red, with a white one for Christmas, set in a wreath of holly and ivy. The four candles represent: 1. God's people watching, believing, obeying 2. the prophets foretelling Christ's birth 3. John the Baptist preaching 4. Mary the Mother of Jesus. These themes appear in Emily Chisholm's "The holly and the ivy/Are dancing in a ring" sung to the familiar tune of the classic version. Here is the first verse:

The holly and the ivy

Are dancing in a ring,

Round the berry-bright red candles,

And the white and shining king.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

Church of the Holy Sepulchre ("St Seps") in Northampton is one of 9 churches built "in the round" in England, of which only 4 remain; St Seps is the largest and best preserved. This Round church is modelled after Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The building here dates from 1098, on the site of a previous church It is the oldest standing building in Northampton. The walls are fantastically thick, as are the pillars. It seems less like a church and more like a defense post. The acoustics are wonderful, however. We attended a concert (to aid the on-going restoration) by the award-winning Northampton Concert Band. The setting was intimate and sound-quality lovely. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

Gayton Village

Some friends of ours live in Gayton Village, which is just outside Northampton. The village boasts an historic church-St Mary the Virgin-dating from the 14th Century. Maintaining such old buildings is a challenge and the on-going maintenance is expensive. (The historical society made them jump through many hoops when the congregation wished to add a washroom to the church building.)

Like many other churches, St. Mary's boasts some unique artifacts, such as this effigy of Philip de Gayton (d. 1316) carved in oak, under which lies his tomb. The de Gayton family came from France and was rewarded for his service with this land. Hence, the village is called 'Gayton'.

Stoke Bruerne

Stoke Bruerne is a picturesque village along a canal (near Northampton). It was rather quiet when we went on a grey damp afternoon in December but the pubs alongside the canal with their generous patios suggested this would be a lovely place to visit on a warm sunny day. The canals were originally built to move goods around. Horses walked along the canal banks pulling the boats up the waterway! A system of locks, which are hand-cracked deal with the changes in elevation. Now the canals are used for pleasure boats and nearby there are marinas filled with these long flat canal boats.

Christ Church College Oxford

I was highly disappointed on my last visit to Oxford to find out that the Cathedral at Christ Church College was closed to the public that day! You can just see the Cathedral behind other college buildings. It costs 6 GBP to see the College (including the Cathedral) but my friends here tell me that members of the parish of St Peter and St Paul in Buckingham can be admitted to the Cathedral without charge as we are members of the Diocese of Oxford.

Ashmolean Museum Oxford

On our first trip to Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum was closed for extensive renovations. As I really wanted to see it, I went by myself for the day to Oxford. The Ashmolean is Britain's first public museum founded in 1683. It is very large: 67 rooms on 5 levels. It has a great collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings as well as some famous paintings such as Turner's Venice: The Grand Canal. There are also collections of stringed instruments, silver, delftware, and coins, among others. Displays are all well-marked and the museum is free!