<p>This is a very rare survival &ndash; a contemporary&nbsp;diary from Bletchley Park, kept by a man for&nbsp;whom conversation was the essential oil of daily&nbsp;life, both inside and outside the office.&nbsp;Basil Cottle arrived at Bletchley Park in September&nbsp;1943, after medical discharge from the Army.&nbsp;He worked in Hut 6 (Block D) on Enigma material,&nbsp;staying on after VE day to work on Albanian, before a&nbsp;long career at the University of Bristol. Well aware of&nbsp;BP security rules, Cottle usually refers only obliquely&nbsp;to the content of his work &ndash; but gives free rein to&nbsp;his opinion of colleagues, landladies, and anyone he&nbsp;bumps into on his days off. We&rsquo;re left in no doubt&nbsp;who he gets on with, and who is a pain. He records&nbsp;amusing scraps of conversation, arguments won&nbsp;and lost, lunch-time diversions, the strains of shiftworking,&nbsp;the impact of the newly-arrived US Army&nbsp;contingent, and a host of detail about getting by in wartime conditions.&nbsp;Cottle, a gifted illustrator, took great delight in&nbsp;drawing fantasy birds for BP colleagues. The book&nbsp;reproduces many of these, and their accompanying&nbsp;comic verses. Produced in association with Bletchley Park.</p>