In his 90 years Lord Asa Briggs has been an Oxford fellow, co-founded the University of Sussex and been Chancellor of the Open University.
But, as he himself admitted, it is the two years he spent as part of the code-breaking team at Bletchley Park that he gets asked about most these days.
After keeping quiet about his wartime career for decades – not even telling his wife about it until the 1970s – Lord Briggs has written both his memoirs and his critique of the many books about Bletchley – Secret Days.
Introduced by current University of Sussex Vice Chancellor, Professor Michael Farthing, this was a rare chance to hear from the man and learn a few insights about the highly secretive operation which helped reduce the war by two years.
But unfortunately, rather than controlling the discussion, Farthing allowed Briggs to give a lengthy introduction, which took in the roundabout way he got to Bletchley, but precious little on the actual experience itself.
It was only questions from the audience – such as the obvious, “How do you actually start to crack a code?” – that pointed the talk towards the day-to-day operations in the huts, the German mistakes which helped crack the code and allowed the audience a glimpse into Bletchley’s world.
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