FOR years I walked past the front gates of Bletchley Park on my way to school and speculated about what the military-style sentry post could be guarding.

"Somewhere for politicians and military chiefs to relocate from London," said some, but the more knowledgeable talked about "secret war work". It wasn't secret enough to stop anti-authority rock band The Rolling Stones becoming the highest-profile 1960s touring act to play Bletchley's biggest hall, which stood about 100 yards from the park and was once part of the base's canteen.

During the war, my grandfather ran the Eight Bells pub which was a further 100 yards down the hill and played host to a mysterious array of new customers. Twenty years later, my own family moved into a new house at the back of the park, which meant every trip into town involved a walk past the high security fence of flat metal poles topped with menacing spikes.

My fascination with untold stories was possibly inspired by living in the shadow of Bletchley Park's tree-lined perimeter and by my first job in journalism, as a junior reporter for the Bletchley Gazette. Sadly, the Gazette is now defunct, and its records are scattered all over Milton Keynes, the city which swallowed Bletchley in the 1970s. But, around 1973-74, a book manuscript called the Ultra Secret, by Fred William Winterbotham, set the Gazette newsroom buzzing with the revelation that the Germans' Engima machine code was cracked at Bletchley Park.

Only ourselves and The Sunday Times were given permission to run the story of Ultra, the codename for the British signals intelligence operation.

Winterbotham was a high-level British operative in Germany during the mid-1930s who, working with Polish intelligence, managed to acquire an Engima machine. It seems incredible now that 8,000 people were recruited to live in temporary, permanent and underground buildings to work in secret breaking German codes throughout the war years - Bletchley's population then totalled about 15,000.

Now, this corner of North Bucks is proud of its vital part in winning the Second World War. Money has been found to turn the site into a museum and, strangely, Mick Jagger is now singing the praises of Bletchley Park as producer of the new movie, Enigma.