Leading article: Enigma: past, present and future

It has taken the best part of 70 years, but the Queen has at last brought the codebreakers of Bletchley Park fully in from the cold, unveiling a memorial to the 9,000 or more who worked there and acknowledging the debt the nation owed to those she described as a "remarkable group of people".

The number of those who served during the Second World War, whether in uniform or anonymously, as at Bletchley, is fast dwindling. Yesterday's ceremony was a last opportunity for at least some of the surviving code-breakers to receive the recognition that has so long been their due.

Now this operation is in the open – renowned for breaking Germany's Enigma codes, but also for techniques that ultimately led to today's computers – belated thought must be given to preserving its memory in a fitting and lasting way. Sited at a crossroads of England, Bletchley Park and its famous, but now sadly dilapidated, "huts" should be incorporated into a national museum, research and conference centre which ponders security issues of the future, while celebrating an illustrious past.