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PGP Leads Corporate Efforts To Save Bletchley Park
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 08, 2008 05:14 PM
from the night-at-the-museum dept.
from the night-at-the-museum dept.
blake182 writes "CNET reports that PGP, together with IBM and other technology firms, is mounting a fundraising effort to benefit the ailing Bletchley Park, home of the Station X codebreaking efforts in World War II. 'We're calling attention (to the fact that) Bletchley is falling into disrepair, and that, probably, the world owes a debt of gratitude to that place,' said Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of PGP."
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Bletchley Park Facing Financial Ruin 234 comments
biscuitfever11 writes "Bletchley Park, the home of Station X, Britain's secret code-breaking base during World War II, is barely scraping by financially, as shown in these images compiled by ZDNet this week. The site has undergone major redevelopment as an act of remembrance for the Allied efforts to break the German Enigma code, but now its future is clouded — among others, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation turned them down for financial assistance (since it doesn't have to do with the Internet). Its director estimates that Bletchley Park's funds will be exhausted in three years. Hungry land developers are circling. This is an insightful look at what's happened to Bletchley Park these days and the pain it's going through."
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Bletchley Park Faces Financial Rescue 60 comments
biscuitfever11 writes "Just two months ago it seemed that Bletchley Park, the home of Station X, Britain's secret code-breaking base during the War, was doomed as the codebreakers' huts rotted and the site fell into disrepair. But today Britain's Lottery Fund is set to step in with a grant to rescue the ailing heritage site. (There was an earlier story on ZDNet.)"
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News: Cash Lifeline For Bletchley Park 63 comments
Smivs writes "Bletchley Park, the home to the allied codebreakers during WWII, and a major computing heritage centre, has been given a financial lifeline, reports the BBC. The grant of £330,000 will be used to undertake urgent roof works as the rooms of the Grade II-listed mansion, replete with painted ceilings, timber panelling, and ornate plasterwork, are at risk because the roof has been patched rather than renovated so many times during the 130 years of the mansion's history.
The donation follows efforts to highlight the dilapidated state of the huts and other buildings at Bletchley.
Discussions are also in progress on a further three-year, £600,000 funding programme for the historic site.
'Bletchley Park played a fundamental role in the Allies winning the Second World War and is of great importance to the history of Europe,' said Dr Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage."
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Dunkelberger (Score:5, Funny)
That's Dunkin' Donuts answer to the Hamburgler, right?
WWII (Score:4, Informative)
We owe lots of stuff to lots of things from the second world war. Nice to see corporations like this getting involved; then again, this is part of PGP's history.
Re:WWII (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WWII (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps they're still embarrassed by the Alan Turing fiasco, and don't want to ever bring it up again?
Seriously, there's no reason to ignore this chapter in their history. It was certainly one of Britain's finest, and this from a country that prides themselves on their many fine contributions to history.
Parent
Re:WWII (Score:5, Informative)
I hate to say it, considering the Godwinism, but the parent's right. It's pretty ironic that IBM should be putting in to save Bletchley, when during the war they were directly involved with Nazi Germany [guardian.co.uk].
"Offtopic" is not the same as "I'm annoyed by this comment"...
Parent
How much? (Score:3, Interesting)
But at least I know that there's a problem and two separate foundations have turned them down for grant money. I guess that's a start.
Re:How much? (Score:5, Informative)
There's no price-tag because this isn't the sort of thing you buy off a store shelf. The first thing they'll need is a budget to do is a museum-grade architectural survey.
Have you seen Bletchley Park? It's not just the main building but the remaining temporary WW2 structures.
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/locations/bletchley-park/bletchlypark-l-lewin/index.html [digibarn.com]
The survey can produce a series of restoration & upkeep senarios, based on how much activity & cost can be devoted over what periods of time, and how much each year of delay will add to the costs and losses. Till that (expensive) survey is done, no one can quote remotely realistic figures.
Another detail: when I was a renovation carpenter it was a firm requirement that any time a project required a wall to be opened, the client MUST have 60% over budget in the bank to deal with unpleasant surprises. Most of the houses I dealt with were less than 100 years old. Even houses built in the 60s regularly had surprise structural problems. About three of those required immediate work that was a good deal more than 60%.
Getting a complex like Bletchley Park surveyed and a reliable maintenance schedule put in place is going to be a major work in itself. Then the costs and compromises (yes, the sheds will probably have to be let go. or replaced by replicas.) are going to be frankly enormous compared to what the place can draw in revenue. No wonder the usual sources have shied away. A serious influx of cash from special-interest groups as proposed is really the only chance the place has of getting to a (still expensive) maintainable state.
Parent
Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM's future would be built on top of key advances made at Bletchley Park, but they probably didn't know BP even existed at the time. BP, on the other hand, probably wouldn't have pissed on IBM to put out a fire. So the upshot is that, now that BP is irrelevant to IBM's future, IBM is offering aid to them, but back when BP was laying the foundation for IBM's future, IBM was completely oblivious to their existence. On top of that, had IBM known what was going on at BP and tried to invest in their own future, BP wouldn't have *wanted* anything to do with IBM!
Somebody at IBM really appreciates irony.
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Insightful)
And? There was a lot of this going on, not just IBM. Coca Cola invented Fanta so they could continue to sell soft drinks in the European market during the War, Nissan were working with Nazi Germany to build their own V1/2 rockets. There are no doubt more examples.
Businesses do this, that's because they are businesses, not governments. To be frank, they probably realise that more than a few wars are started for less than honest reasons, and they likely see no reason to stop doing what they do because of it.
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Informative)
Nissan were working with Nazi Germany to build their own V1/2 rockets.
That would be Nissan the Japanese company, based in a country which was allied with Nazi Germany?
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Funny)
Working with their allies? Ruthless bastards...
rj
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Interesting)
Today when two countries are fighting it is most certain that Coca-Cola is present on both sides. Somehow nobody has a problem with that - it's not common sense that selling soft-drinks to the enemy is going to hurt anyone.
Nevertheless I agree that IBM's role in WWII is not particularly evil. Hollerith punch cards were on the market since 1928 and were used for all kinds of legitimate administrative purposes. Since the public on both sides fighting was mostly unaware of the holocaust until around '43 (in Germany sometimes even '45) it is not very realistic to assume that IBM was knowing about the purpose of orders from nazi-Germany before the US entered the war. And after the US joined the war they can't be held accountable because the German subsidiary DEHOMAG got expropriated.
Given the unique efficiency and cruelty of this genocide I even doubt they could have foreseen it.
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Informative)
I think you underestimate. The book "IBM and the Holocaust" [wikipedia.org] details how the CEO of IBM was closely involved with Nazi Germany, even receiving a medal. These systems were not off the shelf, but custom-built for the Nazis' needs. After the war, when everyone was aware what had happened in the concentration camps, IBM insisted on recovering its profits from the machines used at the camps. They have subsequently refused to apologise for the company's role.
And just because the allies did nothing to stop the holocaust, that doesn't mean that it wasn't being reported. It was known about, especially at higher levels, but generally ignored.
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:4, Informative)
Not exactly. The company's german arm, isolated from the american one, invented it to keep the plant in operation during the war, when they could not get the Coca Cola syrup.
* http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/coke/coke2.html [virginia.edu]
* http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/fanta.asp [snopes.com]
Parent
Re:Ah... The irony of IBM helping Bletchley Park. (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM was merrily outfitting the Nazis with equipment to help them manage their concentration camps (completely ignorant of their application, naturally) while Bletchley park was breaking Nazi codes.
It was also manufacturing M1 rifles for the Allies. (Along with such companies as Rockola - the jukebox maker - and Saginaw Steering Gear. It's handy to convert a factory to guns when it already has equipment for drilling holes the long way down several feet of steel rod and other machines for building small and complicated devices composed of mechanical moving parts.)
(Back when I was buying an old M1 carbine for participating in the Civilian Marksmanship Program training I picked an IBM-branded one just out of nostalgia. The rangemaster was impressed when I qualified with a carbine, rather than a full-length M1, on the first try. Shorter barrels make for less accuracy. B-) But I could have used a Field Engineer: While the steel parts worked fine, the wooden barrel cover kept popping off during recoil. B-( )
Parent
the big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do they have so few visitors? Because the site is presented in what I have to say is a very boring fashion. Yes, I have been there.
If you know your history, and if you can carry your own commentary round in your head, then it rocks seeing a place that's so important historically, but if not then its not even slightly appealing as a location for a day trip.
When I was there I saw a lot of extremely bored kids. If they'd added in some enthusiastic guides with a flair for storytelling they would have been able to draw on enough information to keep those kids engaged, but there was only a very sedate and, to be honest, bland, tour on offer.
I'm not denying that its important to preserve this historical location, but what they really need is to make it more interesting to visitors.
Historical importance alone is not enough, it has to be fun too if they want to survive as a tourist location.
Re:the big problem (Score:5, Informative)
I preferred the really techy stuff - particularly seeing electronic commponents that I worked with when I first started making electronic projects. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for the exibits) you could not touch them. Probably a good thing otherwise I might have been taking the Bombe apart to get a better idea how it worked.
Perhaps they need different color coded streams:
Children, young geeks, wives (or non-geek husbands), old farts.
I hope they get funding sorted. This place is real history. More than almost any castle or birthplace tourist "adventure".
Parent
Use it as location for Indy III and half! (Score:4, Funny)
This way the site will be saved AND we will not see another Indy-against-the-Russians film. Plus, maybe, maybe, it would erase Indy IV from our memory. I would pay for that. A lot.
We can help as well (Score:5, Informative)
Consider purchasing a pocket enigma [bletchleypark.org.uk], or making a donation (link from their home page [bletchleypark.org.uk] or as part of order).
The Independent has a campaign already (Score:5, Informative)
The British newspaper The Independent started a campaign to save Betchley Park [independent.co.uk] on 20 August 2008. I wonder if these are connected ?
Sounds like a great cause - it should definitely be preserved.
Oh the shame of it .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Little point in asking the govt for funding - they are too busy pouring cash into a 3 week sports festival in 2012 -- a complete waste of money.
Good that they werent next to University of Dayton (Score:3, Interesting)
...as they demolished a historical building after railroading about every obstacle in town, and putting some remains in an obscure spot.
Had Bletchley Park been in the US(and next to the named university), they'd have let a local university [udayton.edu] just roll the town over and demolish it after buying the land from NCR for $1.
It's a shame that PGP, IBM, and friends couldn't have come sooner to save NCR's Building 26.
They also served... (Score:3, Insightful)
PGP's site is up now (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll also add that it's a national disgrace that such an important site can be ignored in favour of arts projects.
Bletchley Park not only paved the way for computing and helped win WW2 but also helped the telecoms industry in the hands of the Post Office, which became Post Office telephones, which became British Telecom. Thousands of engineers who built the UK's telephone network trained there.
Parent