Friday 17 October 2014

Cracking school day

Hannah had something called an enrichment day today at school.  This, for the uninitiated, seems to be a jolly good excuse for larking around doing something other than a regular school day.
Today was all about cryptography and required Pringles tubes.  Pringles tubes we can do.  Cryptography content was provided by the educational outreach chap from Bletchley Park, Tom, and an "old girl" in more than one sense.  Mary used to go to Hannah's school but was also one of the amazing Bletchley Park team during the war.
My school days were never this exciting.  Hannah says that not all of her school friends were as enthusiastic as she was but Hannah had a great time.
Hannah started by cracking codes but she also made an Enigma machine using paper and a Pringles tube, and she got to use a real Enigma machine.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the day though was listening to Mary talking about her recruitment from Oxford and the way she signed up to take part without having a clue what she was agreeing to.  She even signed the Official Secrets Act before the nature of the work was disclosed to her.
I'd have liked school to be like this every day.  It certainly beats cross country running across  footpaths of Devon clay and History lessons with the bearded teacher with rancid body odour.

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