Telegraph crossword: Cracking hobby won the day
The boffins of Bletchley cut their teeth on the Telegraph crossword, says Sinclair McKay.
"We were very good at crosswords," says one of the veteran codebreakers of Bletchley Park, ''and also anything to do with anagrams. And of course Scrabble.”
When I wrote my book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park I interviewed brilliant men and women – mathematicians, linguists, debutantes – who had smashed the German Enigma codes in the Second World War. I found that they were not your average eggheads or scientists. Cryptography was a fine art that required an aptitude for lateral thinking, even a certain amount of psychological acuity....
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"We were very good at crosswords," says one of the veteran codebreakers of Bletchley Park, ''and also anything to do with anagrams. And of course Scrabble.”
When I wrote my book The Secret Life of Bletchley Park I interviewed brilliant men and women – mathematicians, linguists, debutantes – who had smashed the German Enigma codes in the Second World War. I found that they were not your average eggheads or scientists. Cryptography was a fine art that required an aptitude for lateral thinking, even a certain amount of psychological acuity....