Recently my Grandmother gave me a box of paperwork that she has kept secret for many years for my Grandfather (who passed away 20 years ago) relating to WWII and afterwards which is a lot of intelligence information, a lot is in English but also a lot in Italian, German, French and other.
I believe recently the date came when it was available to be released into the public realm but i have no idea who may benefit from this stuff. She has kept it secret and after talking with her has been a burden on her because of the importance of some of the information and documents.
Who in the UK would be the best place to seek help and advice in looking through the materials and finding out the importance of it?
Thank you in advance!
First and foremost it's amazing that they've been kept. Please do what you can to make sure they don't get damaged and do what you can to minimize the damage. Original documents are often a wonderful treasure trove to many historians. Often even mundane documents can lead to some critical insight that nobody would have suspected at the time or even a century later. So please make sure they stay safe until they can be properly inventoried/scanned/saved.
It is also possible that they are of little actual value outside of the connection to your grandfather. Still better safe than sorry. Scanning the documents (provided the scanner itself does no damage) would probably be a good place to start as it preserves what is there.
Not sure about the UK, if this were the US I would probably look at whatever preservation/museum that the particular unit he served in might have. I know the several army, navy, and air force units in the US have museums and archives at their home bases. That might be a place to start in the UK as well.
If there's a local museum or historical society it might be worth contacting them to see if they can help or direct you somewhere. I'd definitely advise giving them a quick read through to see if there's anything particularly interesting in there that you can mention.
National Archives weren't very helpful.