On a personal note ...

Bank Holidays are always a blessing. This May Bank Holiday I've had my Dad and his friend (and my friend) Bill visiting.  I had promised them a 'mystery tour' which basically meant they had no idea where we were going for the day.  As soon as we hit the A2 we started playing '20 questions' in order for them to guess our ultimate destination.  Well done them, as they guessed correctly with 6 questions remaining :-)

Our final destination was Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers.


My Dad, outside Hut 8, the code-breaking hut where Alan Turing and others worked on breaking the German Naval Enigma messages

The Code-breakers wall commemorates a
variety of people for their wartime achievements.
Engineer Tommy Flowers was a part of the
design and construction of Colossus, the world's
first semi-programmable electronic computer.

Something I didn't expect to learn about was the role that homing pigeons played in WW2. We read and heard of many stories where homing pigeons flew messages from the frontline to bases throughout the UK, in the process saving thousands of lives.

Always like a bit of dressing up. One of things I liked about Bletchley where all the videos and interactive stuff.









           For those of you who have seen the film 'The Imitation Game', one of the people I wanted to learn more about was Alan Turing.  An English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist.

The world was a very different place in the 1940s/1950s and Turing lived in a time when homosexuality was still a crime. 
I find it incredibly sad, and so wrong, that after all his service to his country in a time of crisis that he was treated so appallingly in the post war years because of his personal lifestyle.
This amazing statue is one of the most beautiful and fascinating things I have ever seen. It is made from thousands of large and small pieces of slate and the detail in utterly incredible.

Thought for the week ...

Rochester Sweeps Festival

It was soooooooo cold yesterday, but several of us managed to venture over to Rochester for the annual Sweeps Festival.

The local Town Crier explaining to students
what his role would've been  ...
to the internet of course.

It was a long'ish day and a tad tiring.

For my Canadian friends ...

You kind of have to be Canadian or have a love of Canada (and coffee) to appreciate this blog post. 

I was at a conference in Birmingham last week and was thrilled to come across Tim Hortons  ...  the home of Canadian coffee & donuts, and a place where I spent many happy hours during my 3 years living in Canada.

Well done, Andy!!!

Some of the students recently met Rev. Andy Wooding-Jones who is the Archdeacon of Rochester. I'm very pleased that Andy is now part of the Chaplaincy Board which oversees the partnership between Rochester Diocese and the three university institutions at the Medway Campus.


Just wanted to say A BIG CONGRATULATIONS on your recent achievement of completing the London Marathon in aid of the Pink Ladies Breast Cancer Support Group.









Some words explained:
Diocese:  a district under the pastoral care of a bishop in the Christian Church.
Archdeacon:  a senior Christian cleric to whom a bishop delegates certain responsibilities.