Who can unlock the business secrets of Bletchley Park Post Office?
Would you bet on odds of 158 million, million, million to one? Probably not – but those were the odds stacked against cracking German coded communications during World War II. But the Germans reckoned without the genius of sophisticated code-breakers based at Bletchley Park, which was home to about 8,500 people, all of whom worked in total secrecy, using a room now occupied by the little Post Office at the side of the imposing Bletchley Park mansion to send and receive undercover wartime communications with the secret address of PO Box 111, Bletchley. When Bletchley Park first opened to the public as a charitable Trust in 1994, it had few of its present visitor facilities. Local businessman John Chapman thought a small gift shop offering visitors souvenirs of their visit was a good idea, so he opened up a small room attached to the side of the mansion that we now know to have been that important wartime mailroom. The opening of Bletchley Park as a heritage site coincided with Royal Mai
