GREENISH, BOwEN & COPElAND | 193
Herivel.^6 On 24 July a letter was published in The Times headed ‘Saving the heritage of Bletchley
Park: We cannot let Bletchley go to rack and ruin’.^7 Ninety-seven computer scientists signed the
letter, including Sue Black, who highlighted the plight of Bletchley Park on BBC TV news the
same day. The BBC reported:^8
The centre of the British code-breaking effort during World War II is in urgent need of saving,
a group of scientists says. The group, led by Dr Sue Black, say the mansion and the huts sur-
rounding it, where the Enigma code was cracked and one of the first computers was built, are in
serious disrepair.
The effect of increased publicity on Bletchley Park’s visitor numbers was dramatic: the
numbers doubled and then doubled again in 2008–12. These annual visitor numbers are the
standard measure of Bletchley Park’s health, since they are not only the main determinant of
the Trust’s operating revenue but also an indicator of public enthusiasm for what Bletchley Park
has to offer. In March 2008, when visitor numbers stood at less than 50,000 a year, the Trust’s
CEO, Simon Greenish, announced that Bletchley Park was teetering on a financial knife-edge.
But publicity roared ahead, with the wartime story finally reaching a sizeable proportion of the
population. By the end of 2015, annual visitor numbers had climbed to a thumping 286,000.
Getting the message out
Movies helped to publicize the Bletchley Park story. Enigma, produced by Mick Jagger of the
Rolling Stones and released in 2001, doubled visitor numbers. More recently Hollywood’s The
Imitation Game (2015) has entertained audiences around the world. Although widely criticized
for inaccuracy, this movie nevertheless brought home the mammoth importance of Bletchley
Park’s attack on the German naval ciphers. It evokes the wartime atmosphere at Bletchley Park
with its odd mix of military types and civilians: in among the crisp army and navy uniforms
the film shows the codebreakers dressed down in pullovers and flannels, and when somebody
starts to get a break into a message there are lifelike scenes of codebreakers clustering around
excitedly and looking over each other’s shoulders. Also realistic are the shots of coaches ferry-
ing workers in and out, and of the wide-open spaces where people could get away and talk, as
when Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) settle down on the
grass with sandwiches to discuss mathematics.
Bletchley Park movies have tended to focus on Enigma, with no mention of the monumentally
important attack on Tunny (see Chapters 14 and 16). In 2008 Jerry Roberts and Jack Copeland
(friends and collaborators since 2001) initiated discussions with several movie companies
about that aspect of Bletchley Park’s story. Their efforts culminated in the BBC’s Code-Breakers:
Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes, directed by Julian Carey: this won two BAFTAs in 2012 and was
rated as one of the year’s three best historical documentaries at the 2013 Media Impact Awards
in New York City. Code-Breakers led on to director Denis van Waerebeke’s 2015 movie about
Turing, The Man Who Cracked the Nazi Codes, distributed throughout Europe by Arte TV.
Unlike The Imitation Game, The Man Who Cracked the Nazi Codes gives an accurate portrayal
of Turing and his work at Bletchley Park. Other important movies, such as Patrick Sammon’s
Codebreaker, released in 2011, and the BBC’s Bletchley Park: Codebreaking’s Forgotten Genius
of 2015 (directed by Russell England and based on Joel Greenberg’s book Gordon Welchman:
Bletchley Park’s Architect of Ultra Intelligence) also played their part.