This spring, Bletchley Park celebrated World Poetry Day by recalling notable poets who served there. Among them were Herbert Read and Vernon Watkins, who turned their creative talents to codebreaking during the war.
One poet firmly rejected was Philip Larkin. Sixty years later, he’s still firmly persona non grata at Bletchley.
How Bletchley recruited staff remains a mystery. It was informal and eccentric – essentially down to whether you were ‘right’ for the job. Larkin should have fitted the bill – public school and Oxford,
