The Derby Probus Club

The Derby Probus Club – Bletchley Park Trip

On a typical English wet morning at 09:00 on May 13th, 12 people from Derby Probus gathered at the Great Northern Inn, Mickleover. We were waiting for a coach to arrive at 09:15 to take us to the world-famous Bletchley Park. 

The trip had been organised by Roy Parkin. Expecting a small coach, we were surprised that a full-size coach arrived giving the 12 of us plenty of room to spread out. 

We set off close to the planned departure time. After sitting on the coach for some time we noticed there was no heating and asked the driver to turn the heating only to discover he had not driven this particular coach before and was unsure how to turn the heating on. After some thought he decided that we would stop at Watford Gap services while he made a phone call to HQ to sort out the heating and we took a comfort break. On returning to the coach, we found the problem had been resolved and from then on we were sitting in a much warmer coach. 

Good time was made to Bletchley Park, where parking and entrance was simple and relatively fast. Before going our separate ways in the site, we agreed to meet back at the coach at 16:00 to allow us to get back to the Great Northern around 18:00 for an evening meal together. 

Unfortunately, the guided walk was fully booked by the time we arrived, so we got headphones and cassettes for the self-guided tour. There was much to see and interest us in the various huts on the site so that we managed to avoid the heavy showers that occurred throughout the day. 

Bletchley Park was the centre for Allied Code breaking from 1939 thru 1946 and. at its’ peak 9000 people were working in shifts around the clock. As is widely known they broke the Enigma and Lorenz ciphers using the ‘Bombe’ and ‘Colussus’ (which is said to be the first programmable electronic digital computer). Unfortunately, we did not see the reconstructed ‘Colossus’, because it is housed in the separate National Museum of Computing. 

After doing our separate self-guided tours we made it back to the coach to leave on time. 

An uneventful trip back to the Great Northern in Mickleover meant we arrived there close to 18:00. Most of us stayed on at the Great Northern for a very enjoyable evening meal; eventually departing for home around 21:00. 

Despite the unpromising weather at the start of the day, we all agreed we had a very enjoyable, sociable, and interesting time together.