Do you know what an Enigma machine does? How much do you know about one of the most fascinating stories of the Second World War?

Mark Baldwin, 'Dr Enigma' will be coming to Bridport Electric Palace this week, bringing his Enigma machine for audience members to take apart and have a hands-on demonstration.

So, we caught up with him to find out more.

The Allied Codebreakers deciphered a vast number of German secret messages and used the intelligence to become victorious, including information on troop and aircraft dispositions, tank and artillery strength, orders of battle, U-boat movements and technical development.

The Germans used the portable Enigma machines for secret communications and codes were only used once and changed every 24 hours.

It's understood that the intelligence gained from these machines shortened the war by about two years.

Dr Baldwin has become a well-travelled speaker on the achievements of Bletchley Park - the home of the codebreakers - in particular the Enigma machine, Second World War intelligence and Alan Turing OBE FRS, a mathematician and computer scientist amongst others who worked at Bletchley Park. He has given talks to schools, on cruise ships and even in San Francisco to the likes of Facebook.

His fascination for the subject was sparked more than 20 years ago when he ran a second-hand book shop. He used to sell books through catalogues and while writing a description for one particular book, his life was changed forever.

"I had a book called 'Very Special Intelligence'," he said, "It could have been anything and it happened to be about the use the navy made during the Second World War of the intelligence that derived largely from breaking German Enigma messages.

"I thought it was fascinating - it's not something I had come across before and nobody I knew, knew much about it.

"Not only was it an interesting story because of the challenge of breaking ciphers and working out what German messages meant, but there is also the need for allies to be very careful in the way they use intelligence as if they rush into action on the basis of having broken a secret message, it may well suggest the only way they could undertake that action was because you had been reading a message. You've got to be clever enough to use the information in such a way that doesn't suggest communications are being compromised.

"There's no question that book changed my life. It led to doing theatre shows and teaching at universities.

"It was clearly an important book in my own life story but wasn't the sort of book anyone would have picked out as worth hundreds of pounds."

Dr Baldwin has done nearly 1,000 presentations on this subject and curious audiences can expect a clear explanation of how the machine works, but they don't need any technical knowledge to appreciate the show. They will also have the opportunity to operate an Enigma machine and see how it works.

Current tallies suggest around 40,000 were made and around 99 per cent destroyed, with around 300 to 400 left, with one in Blandford Forum's Royal Signals Museum.

Dr Baldwin went to visit the museum with his wife, and not wanting to leave his Enigma machine in the car, carried it in with him.

"The staff behind the desk got rather worried because Blandford could be a target for a terrorist attack due to the signals' relationship," he added. "They were whispering and got the director down, who said they were a little worried about what I was carrying. He asked what I had in my case and I said I had an Enigma machine.

"I managed to persuade him to get their machine out of the case and see if it works. He had never done that before and the lights lit up."

Dr Baldwin will be at Bridport Electric Palace on Saturday, March 19 from 7.30pm.

He said: "I hope they'll have an entertaining evening in the theatre, it's a traditional slide show and we will examine Bletchley Park, the Enigma machine and Alan Turing and end up with people being able to use the machine."

To find out more and tickets, visit electricpalace.org.uk

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