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This is Jean Peskett’s (née Purvey) story: it has been added by Pauline Colcutt (on behalf of the Fernhurst Centre), with permission from the author who understands the terms and conditions of adding her story to the website.

NO PICNIC IN THIS PARK!

My family moved to Littlehampton in the spring 1939 to be near my Father who was serving in the Fleet Air Arm stationed at H.M.S. Peregrine at Ford, Sussex. War was declared in the September and I started work in the local Council Offices dealing with the receiving and billeting of evacuees. My young sister, Ann aged 6 years was evacuated to Blidworth, Notts. and shortly after visiting her, my Mother died. Because of her death I was granted deferment from call-up. This lasted until the beginning of 1943 and I then applied to join the WRENS. But the WRENS was closed at that time and I was told to go home and wait - which I did, reporting to the local Labour Exchange from time to time. I heard from them eventually to the effect that the Foreign Office was in need of touch typists and would I please go to an interview in London. So, I went up, with my Aunt Elsie for company and whilst she waited for me in Green Park I went across the road to a Foreign Office interview, with my official letter in my hand. The lift keeper said ‘Bet you want Floor 3, luv. I can tell because you’re wearing a hat’. My interview was very short and I was told I would be hearing from them in due course. What I didn’t realise of course, was that all the information they needed about me had already been discreetly obtained.

In October 1943 I heard from the Foreign Office. They enclosed a travelling pass to a place called Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire (one way only!) They said I would be met at the station. My Auntie Elsie again came up to London with me and we said goodbye on bleak Euston Station - a somewhat scared me and a very worried Aunt. Although twenty years of age I had never really been away from home before and the majority of young women of that era were not so worldly wise as they are today.

Arriving at Bletchley, after a long and boring journey, longer still I was to find out, if it was a ‘stopping’ train - I was one of about 20 girls, who were met and then taken by coach to billets in the surrounding villages. My billet was in the village of New Bradwell where I was billeted together with a girl called Winnie. I can still picture my landlady, but I just cannot remember her name! We had bed, breakfast and one main meal - either lunch or supper, depending on our shift.

The next morning Winnie and I went down to the pick-up point for the Bletchley Park (B.P.) bus. It was a strange journey with little or no conversation. We were to find that most of the journeys to and from B.P. were like that - we seldom met the same people on the bus and if we did they were never from the same department or shift. When we reached B.P. we were confronted by huge guarded gates and our names were carefully checked against the guards lists. During that day we were given our official passes, signed the Official Secrets Act and told our rates of pay as Grade 3 Clerks in the Foreign Office. When I left in 1945 I was receiving a £2 8s 6d per week as a Grade 2 Clerk, out of which had to pay a £1 1s 0d as a contribution towards board and keep. We did not have the privilege of uniforms or travel passes as the service personnel also working in B .P did.

Having been issued with passes we could in theory come and go into the Park, but in practice we were only allowed as far as the Canteen which was just inside the gates for our meals until two weeks later when we had finished our initial training. We could see that the Mansion was a lovely old house and that there was a big lake, beyond which there appeared to be huts and big concrete buildings because we had to catch our buses lined up by the side of the lake.

In old Elmers School, just outside the gates, we learnt to read and then type Morse Code. We sat in the schoolrooms which were quite dark with windows placed high up as they often were in those days. Several groups of Morse letters were put in front of us and we were left on our own for long periods of time until we had learnt them - then we moved on to the next group. It was very lonely and boring and during those first few days I dreamt and thought nothing but Morse.

Then came the day when we were introduced to the TypeX Machine. This was to be our 'typewriter' for the next two years. Our copy was strips of five letter groups of Morse, stuck onto foolscap sheets of paper at the top of which was information as to the ‘drums’ or rotors we needed to break the code into groups of 5 letters. These message pads could comprise any number of groups 50 odd groups up to over 400. The latter were more popular as we had to record on a timesheet the work we did each day and the more groups the better. But we could not just rummage through and pick out the work we wanted - it was all in strict priority. Sometimes we had corruptions nothing but a stream of figures and letters. There were various things we could do to correct this, but when all else failed the message pad would be passed to typists who could spend more time on finding the fault. This was a fascinating job and one which I liked very much.

Having finished our training we were taken to our final destination, E. Block a concrete construction at the far end of the lake. There were four other blocks A. B. C. and D. and they were constructed during 1941-42. I joined C watch and began working the arduous shift pattern of one week of days, a week of evenings and a week of nights. I didn’t like the night shift, as I couldn’t sleep during the day . Music was supposed to help us and the favourite record was Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters giving their version of an appropriate ‘Don’t Fence me in’! Our numbers grew and eventually I think there were about 7,000 of us working in the Park, plus of course all the service personnel. We worked in a long narrow room with windows on two sides and long wooden tables down the length of one side each of which housed 6 machines - three either side. The noise when all machines were operating was quite deafening. It was all quite bewildering for a while, but I was lucky in finding a good friend - Margery. I had seen her from time to time, both in the Park and also on the bus she appeared to be billeted in New Bradwell, as I was. We struck up a friendship which has lasted now over 60 years, and although my husband Cyril and I find it difficult to see Margery and her husband Ted, I phone her every week. I was very young, naive and sometimes very unhappy and she was always there for me like an older sister and helped me through difficult times without perhaps knowing it.

Shift work comprising one week of days, one week of evenings and one week of nights was not easy to work through. I thought I would never ever get used to it, but one did - there was no choice. Night shift was awful as I could never sleep during the day. My bedroom faced a school playground so there was little chance of getting to sleep or if I did, of staying asleep!

I was billeted in New Bradwell with Winnie from the October until the summer of the following year, and so was able to go out with Margery, who was billeted in the same village. We both had bikes and explored the lovely countryside when we were able to. We went into Stoney Stratford where there was a library (I read all of the Forsythe Sagas during that time!) There was a shop in Stoney Stratford which was part antiques and part coffee shop which was opened occasionally. We always hoped it would be open when we went there - the cakes were a real treat.

My billet eventually became impossible for me and Margery persuaded me to go to the billeting office and they moved me into the country to Newton Poppleford. I was with a lovely family called Burr and this was the nicest of the three billets I had whilst at B.P. Unfortunately for me I was not there very long as Mrs. Burr became pregnant and my room was needed for her other little daughter. This billet was also the most remote it was not on the B.P. coach run and I never knew until I had consulted Arthur, the coach Major Domo of transport, just what method of transport I would be using that day. I had to walk down a narrow country lane to the main road to be picked up - not bad during the day, but not so pleasant in the dark, with not a house in sight, and only cows and a torch for company. I never knew what my method of transport back to B.P. would be and I was passed by on more than one occasion - not funny in the depths of winter and in the snow. Whilst at this billet I contracted mumps and had to move into the sick bay, for 10 days. Inside the Park and alongside the path to the Station, I used to wave to my friends as they walked to the Station for a cup of tea.

When I had full access to the Park for the first time and began working on C Watch, in Block E I was surprised and puzzled by the variety of people who were walking around - both civilians and also service personnel of all ranks and nationalities. Strange people too! Recently my husband and I went to see the film, ‘Enigma’ a mystery based around Bletchley Park. One of the characters was a flying officer Kite type, who drove about with a huge white scarf wound around his neck. I said I had never seen anyone like that at Bletchley, but recently, whilst re-reading a letter I sent to a friend serving in the Navy, and who later became my husband I discovered I had written — There are some funny people in this place! I saw an R.A.F. Officer today, with a huge white scarf around his neck! After 60 years the memory fades!! Everyone kept to the company of their own workmates, even when making use of the coffee bar in the Mansion. This was in the big room to the right of the main door. We used to learn Scottish dancing in the room to the left. We all ate the same awful food in the Canteen which was by the main entrance to the Park. Whilst I was waiting for a new billet I was housed temporarily in the Hostel which again was to the left of the path leading to the Station. Some women liked the hostel, but I didn’t as I was very lonely not knowing anyone there. But worst of all I had to take all my meals in the dreaded Canteen. Fortunately my stay here was short and I then went to two lovely sisters - the Misses Snowdon who lived in Buckingham Street, Wolverton (Wolverton was at that time the home of the great steam train building and maintenance industry, and many local people, both men and women worked at this great factory.) They were retired ladies, fairly old-fashioned, but very, very kind to me and we kept up a correspondence for several years after I returned home. I slept in a huge four-poster bed on a lovely feather mattress but the loo was a 'middy' in the garden! I stayed with them until I left B.P. Wolverton reminds me that the railways played quite a part in our lives - apart from the buns and tea in the railway buffet. They took us home on leave nearly always on time, and brought us safely out of London often during air raids. The train was nearly always full mostly with service personnel -.airmen from the Northampton area and we often had to stand all the way to Euston. We didn’t mind - we were going home! One night the train was full of Polish airmen and I had to stand in the corridor with some of them. One could speak English and asked me to spend the evening with him in London. He ignored my excuses and it was with some relief that one of my friends made room for me in a Carriage.

V.E. Day came and went in a flurry of work and we began to have thoughts of going home, but Margery and I were not amongst those released. In the days leading up to it we guessed something was afoot by the type of messages coming in - some of them in English and not Morse. Life carried on after V.E. Day and because I was back in the New Bradwell area, Margery and I were able to meet more frequently which was nice. There was a cinema in Wolverton, which was the next village to New Bradwell and we saw several films which are now classic ‘oldies’.

I was on holiday leave when the atom bombs were dropped on Japan and the following day I had a telephone call ordering me back to Bletchley. We had not been able to get to London for the V.E. celebrations because we were on night duty, but Margery and I were on day shift for V.J. day and decided to go to London when we came off duty. Whilst the main events of that day are clear in our minds, neither Margery nor myself can recall the simple things, such as where did we eat, or get a drink. We came off the train at Euston and went to Piccadilly by tube, joining in the dancing around the spot where Eros should have been (he was removed for safety during the War). From there we made our way by foot through the happy crowds, down the Mall to Buckingham Palace and found a spot on the lower steps of the Victoria Monument. Here we waited for the appearance of the Royal Family and party who appeared twice as I recall. It was getting late so we decided to make our way back to Euston where we knew we would have to spend the night. The crowds were still coming down the Mall to get to the Palace and we had a job to push our way through to go in the opposite direction but everyone was in a good mood and it was all good fun and something I would not have missed. Fortunately Margery was a Londoner and found her way back to Euston. Although we were very tired after all this walking I don’t think we got much sleep on the hard benches. We caught the milk train back to Bletchley around 4 a.m. and arrived in time for breakfast before going on duty at 8 a.m. Our shift ended at 4 p.m. and when I got back to my billet I was dreaming of an early night, but the Misses Snowdon said there was a street party in progress and would I join them. What could I say but ‘Yes’.

I cannot remember much of the time between V.]. Day - 6th August and our release on 30th August 1945. I seem to remember the workload decreased and I was put in charge of a machine I wasn’t happy using, very lonely in a large room all by myself! It was quite sad saying goodbye to all the girls on ‘C’ watch. Margery is the only one I have kept in touch with and she and Ted, her husband have been true friends throughout the years.

On our release we were told to go home and forget all about Bletchley Park, but not to forget we had signed the Official Secrets Act. I kept the secret, even from my husband, for over thirty years.

Now on the Roll of Honour at Bletchley Park, and also having Freedom of the Park, I am very proud of having been a minor (civilian) cog in ‘BRITAIN’S BEST KEPT SECRET’

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