Computer Weekly has done a beguiling job with the Bill Tutte story. Tutte was an outstanding codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the second world war, plucked from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1941. He figured out the structure of the Lorenz SZ 40/42 encryption machine, used for top-secret communication by the German general staff.

Tommy Flowers, the telephone engineer who built the valve-based Colossus computer that was used to decipher Lorenz machine messages, is also mentioned in the piece. Tutte's thinking enabled Colossus to do its work.

Computer Weekly's Ian Grant interviews Jerry Roberts, a Station X survivor determined to see better recognition for the work of Tutte and Flowers. It’s a charming interview. Salutary, to register, that the code breakers are estimated to have shortened the war by two years, and saved 20 million lives.

I’ve never quite understood why the British establishment has been so bashful with respect to Bletchley Park. Perhaps it’s just seemly reserve?

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