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Bletchley Park puts stamp on Turing centenary

By James Ledward
Jan 27, 2012 - 12:50:30 PM
National Feed
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Bletchley Park will release four first day covers celebrating Alan Turing’s centenary year on February 20.
 
Each will carry a single 1st class Royal Mail 'Turing Bombe' stamp cancelled with a unique first day of issue postmark.  The intention is to restrict the issue to just 500 of each. 

Produced in association with the Alan Turing Centenary Year Committee and Bletchley Park, Post Office, proceeds will go towards supporting Bletchley Park. 

Similar stamp and envelope combinations from Bletchley Park Post Office have fetched several times their original issue price. 

At £9.99 each these little pieces of art and history could be a good investment.
 
They can be previewed and ordered at:
www.bletchleypark.org.uk/shop/index.rhtm/149524/cat.html
 
The first design is by Rebecca Peacock of Firecatcher Design and the theme is Turing’s work on the mathematics of patterns.  It was Turing’s genius for mathematics that made his work so vital to Bletchley Park and the development of modern computing.
 
The other three are original paintings by artist Steve Williams who has donated his work to the Bletchley Park Trust. They depict three buildings at Bletchley Park associated with Alan Turing.  These are the cottage and Hut 8 where he worked and Hut 11 that housed the Turing Bombe machines.
 
The Royal Mail stamp features the rebuilt Turing Bombe on display to visitors at Bletchley Park.

The first day of issue postmark is a facsimile of one of the Bombe’s 36 drums marked with the letters of the alphabet.
 
A dedicated team, led by engineer John Harper, spent 15 years rebuilding the working Turing Bombe, a marvel of electro-mechanical engineering used to help crack the Enigma cipher. 

Bletchley Park Post Office was once the codebreakers’ undercover mail room then a sub post office when Bletchley Park became a GPO training centre. 

Its re-creation of a 1940’s post office is a popular attraction.  The first day covers and special stamps it began issuing in 1994 are sought after by collectors from around the world.
 


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