Here is the quarterly newsletter for French to keep you informed about the proposed changes  and developments to this group.  

The group will be meeting at Lammas Leas Community Room on September 19th at 6pm in the first instance to see if we can get this group up and running. We intend to have two groups to cover both Beginners and Conversational French so there really is something for everyone.

If you want to be part of this, come along on 19th September.

The June newsletter is here…

You can access the newsletter from this post or from the email the majority of our members will receive by the 4th June 2024

If you haven’t told us your email address or if it has changed… to avoid missing out send your updated email details to membership@westwoldsu3a.org.

If you would like to make comment on this newsletter or submit an article for the next issue then please send details to newsletter@westwoldsu3a.org by Friday 28th June 2024.

We would really like to hear from you about any events your groups are involved in. The Newsletter is only as good as the articles submitted by members. We relish any feedback.

Here are the photos of the month chosen from our April technical theme of ‘Take a photo in the style of your favourite Artist’ and the Fun theme of ‘Angles’ plus a monthly favourite as voted on by the group. Each month we choose challenging themes to go out and take photos to suit.

If you are interested in Photography, why not join us at the New Life Church on the first Monday of the month.

For further photos taken by our group through the months go to our challenge page https://westwoldsu3a.org/?page_id=22714

Elaine has been a volunteer at Bletchley Park since 2019 and began her very interesting talk by giving us a potted history of the house and its estate. The site appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a farmhouse however, this was demolished and replaced over the years by several different ‘mansions’ until it was bought in 1883 by Sir Herbert Samuel Leon who was a stockbroker and local MP. He extended the house into what we see today and both he and his wife lived there until they both died.

In 1938, the mansion and much of the site went up for auction however, it did not meet its target price and was eventually privately bought the same year by Sir Hugh Sinclair who was head of the Secret Intelligence Service  (SIS or MI6). He used his own money because the Government said they did not have the budget at the time to do so although they did eventually buy it off him. Sinclair was keen to relocate the SIS from its London base in the event of war and immediately saw the benefits of Bletchley Park’s geographical location.  Being adjacent to Bletchley railway station enabled easy access to the West Coast railway line which connected London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh and, the A5 was also nearby which linked London to the north-west.

Bletchley Park housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which included a highly qualified team of codebreakers and cryptanalysts of which Alan Turing is probably the best known. He joined the team the day after war was declared in 1938 and used his remarkable knowledge of cryptology to help break the German naval codes including the famous Enigma machine. In 1940, Turing designed the Bombe machine which helped to speed up the decryption process so intelligence could quickly be passed on.

The secrecy around these Bombe machines was so successful that the Germans remained totally unaware that their information had been ‘cracked’ and, hundreds of these Bombes were made and housed in numbered huts within the Bletchley Park grounds. The legacy of this forward-thinking computer expert cannot be disputed as he unquestionably laid the foundations for modern day computing and Artificial Intelligence driving innovations like speech recognition and machine vision we know today. 

The staff were mainly recruited from the three armed forces and Oxford and Cambridge universities. Each one came highly recommended for his or her particular ability or expertise in mathematics, languages, physics or engineering. For obvious reasons, the majority of the staff were female nevertheless, their ability to perform calculations and coding as well as clerical and administrative work meant they were an integral part of the computing processes. The staff worked a twenty-four-hour day in three eight-hour shifts, with a half-hour meal break for six days a week. At its peak, forty coaches were used to bring the workers into work each day as most of them were billeted in private homes within a five-mile radius of Bletchley Park. In addition to this volume of transport, there were also large numbers of (mainly female) dispatch riders entering and leaving the site throughout the day and night carrying important information. In January 1945, at the peak of codebreaking efforts, nearly 9,000 personnel were working at Bletchley.

Finally, in 1944 an electronic computer was developed called Colossus which was able to code break at the electronic speed of 5,000 characters per second. Sadly however, its life was very short because in 1945, everything at Bletchley Park was dismantled and taken away and, as every member of staff had signed the Official Secrets Act, they were prevented from speaking about their work for another 30 years. The Post Office used the now empty house for training purposes but it soon started to show signs of wear and tear and began to crumble. By 1990, the Park was up for sale again but thankfully, Milton Keynes Council made it into a conservation area and the Bletchley Park Trust was set up in 1991 by a group of people who recognised the site’s importance.

It is now a very vibrant heritage attraction which is open daily for visitors to learn how the Codebreakers’ breath-taking achievements helped shorten WW2 by up to two years and, it features numerous interpretive exhibits and huts that have been rebuilt to appear as they did during their wartime operations. The separate National Museum of Computing now includes a working replica Bombe machine and a rebuilt Colossus computer which is housed in Block H on the site and helps attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

The May newsletter is here…

You can access the newsletter from this post or from the email the majority of our members will receive by the 4th May2024

If you haven’t told us your email address or if it has changed… to avoid missing out send your updated email details to membership@westwoldsu3a.org.

If you would like to make comment on this newsletter or submit an article for the next issue then please send details to newsletter@westwoldsu3a.org by Friday 30th May 2024.

We would really like to hear from you about any events your groups are involved in. The Newsletter is only as good as the articles submitted by members. We relish any feedback.

You may already have heard that our dear friend and long term member Joe passed away recently, just a few weeks short of his 100th birthday. He will be sadly missed by many of us.

If you would like to attend his funeral it is taking place on Thursday 2nd May at 11.00 am in St Thomas’ church Market Rasen. All welcome. It’s followed by a private burial.

It’s less than a fortnight until this 25th Anniversary event and we’ve still got one of two places left if you want to take part.  You’ll need to be in a team of three or four people. Full instructions will be given on the day. Click here for poster

West Wolds U3A

25^th Anniversary

Car Treasure Hunt – Team Event

On Wednesday 1^st May 2024

Starting @ 10:00 from Willingham Woods Car Park

(Please be at Willingham Woods by 9.45am)

Explore our beautiful countryside whilst solving clues

and answering questions.

Cost just £4.00 per car

Booking and further details are available from:

Sandra Dean

Email: smobrien1@gmail.com

Food and drink can be purchased at the finish.

We’ve just a few places left for this event

Full instructions given at the start.