Follow-up to the bestselling The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, the hitherto-untold story of how young men and women across the world listened in to and intercepted the enemy’s radio traffic so that Bletchley Park’s codebreakers could turn the course of the war. Before Bletchley Park could break the German war machine’s codes, its daily military communications had to be monitored and recorded by “the Listening Service” – the wartime department whose bases moved with every theatre of war: Cairo, Malta, Gibraltar, Iraq, Cyprus, as well as having listening stations along the eastern coast of Britain to intercept radio traffic in the European theatre. This is the story of the – usually very young – men and women sent out to far-flung outposts to listen in for Bletchley Park, an oral history of exotic locations and ordinary lives turned upside down by a sudden remote posting – the heady nightlife of Cairo, filing-cabinets full of snakes...

A remarkable look at day-to-day life of the codebreakers whose clandestine efforts helped win World War IIBletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain's Government Code and Cypher School—and the site where Germany's legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation's most brilliant mathematical minds—including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing—toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility. Drawing on remarkable first-hand interviews, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers reveals the entertainments, pastimes, and furtive romances that helped ease the incredible pressures faced by these covert operatives as they worked to turn the tide of World War II.

Following on from the enormous success of his bestseller, The Secret Life of Bletchley Park, renowned author Sinclair McKay uncovers the story of what happened after the end of the Second World War.Once victory was declared, many of the individuals who had achieved the seemingly impossible at Bletchley Park by cracking the impenetrable Enigma codes and giving the Allies an invaluable insight directly into the Nazi war machine, moved on to GCHQ. This was the British government's new facility established to fight a different, but no less formidable foe – Stalin and the KGB.Fascinating and insightful revelations from deep within the archives of this secret organisation reveal the story of the tumultuous early years of GCHQ as it navigated its way through an era of double agents, deception and betrayals. From the defection of the Cambridge Five and the treachery of the atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs, to the collapse of the British Empire, the ascension of Chairman...

The huge success of Sinclair's The Secret Life of Bletchley Park – a quarter of a million copies sold to date – has been symptomatic of a similarly dramatic increase in visitors to Bletchley Park itself, the Victorian mansion in Buckinghamshire now open as an engrossing museum of wartime codebreaking. Aurum is publishing the first comprehensive illustrated history of this remarkable place, from its prewar heyday as a country estate under the Liberal MP Sir Herbert Leon, through its wartime requisition with the addition of the famous huts within the grounds, from the place where modern computing was invented and the German Enigma code was cracked, to its post-war dereliction and then rescue towards the end of the twentieth century as a museum whose visitor numbers have more than doubled in the last five years...

Until the mid-seventies Bletchley Park remained a secret. At a rambling Victorian house in the Buckinghamshire countryside, thousands of young people decoded and translated intercepted messages, whilst some of Britain's most brilliant minds effectively invented modern computing. Their greatest collective achievement was the cracking of the Enigma code. The intelligence gained was instrumental in turning both the Battle of Britain and the war in North Africa, and, according to official historians, their efforts shortened the war by at least two years. But no-one talked about it. All had signed the Official Secrets Act, and everyone kept their word. Only recently have the last surviving veterans told their remarkable story. Now, through dozens of new interviews, Sinclair McKay reveals what life was like for the men and women who worked at Bletchley Park, trapped in an odd, secret territory somewhere between civilian and military. It's an amazing compendium of memories – of...

Number 4 Euston Square was a respectable boarding house, well-kept and hospitable, like many others in Victorian London. But beneath this very ordinary veneer, there was a murderous darkness at its heart.On 8th May 1879, the corpse of former resident, Matilda Hacker, was uncovered by chance in the coal cellar. The investigation that followed this macabre discovery stripped bare the shadow-side of Victorian domesticity, throwing the lives of everyone within into an extraordinary and destructive maelstrom. For someone in Number 4 Euston Square must have had full knowledge of what had happened to Matilda Hacker. Someone in that house had killed her. How could the murderer prove so amazingly elusive?Bestselling author, Sinclair McKay delves into this intriguing story and sheds light on a mystery that eluded the detectives of Scotland Yard.

During the dark days of 1940, when Britain faced the might of Hitler's armed forces alone, the RAF played an integral role in winning the Battle of Britain against the Luftwaffe, thus ensuring the country's safety from invasion. The men and women of Fighter Command worked tirelessly in air bases scattered throughout the length and breadth of Britain to thwart the Nazi attacks; The Secret Life of Fighter Command tells their story.