大象传媒

In the autumn of 1940, I wanted to join in the Forces 鈥� particularly in the WRNS. My family had been cast out of our home in Westcliff-on-Sea as the town had been requisitioned by the Admiralty and renamed 鈥淗MS Westcliff鈥�. We had been bombed out of London and ended up in a tiny cottage in a village called Water Eaton 鈥� adjoining Bletchley in Buckinghamshire.

My mother beseeched me to stay at home as long as possible as my two younger brothers had volunteered at 17 years of age for the Navy and Fleet Air Arm. Although I was then 21, we acceded to our parents鈥� wishes in those 鈥榓ncient鈥� times and I applied to a Govt. Dept. installed in a country mansion called Bletchley Park nearby, which the locals said was the Ministry of Information.

I was interviewed in a nearby church by a severe-looking man who placed a revolver on the desk between us achieving what he intended 鈥� my complete intimidation. My CV stated educated in a grammar school, commercial graduation to London Chamber of Commerce adv. Cert., and schoolgirl German.

On my first day, I signed the Official Secrets Act requirement not to divulge my work on pain of death 鈥� literally!! Not to fraternise outside my Department and never to mention Bletchley Park outside the Village.

I was then shown into a very large room where I became hazily aware of many giant uniformed officers with yards of gold lace on cuffs almost to their elbows, pouring over large maps, discussing strategy, a side bench equipped with three typewriters 鈥� pre-First World War variety 鈥� two operated by one-finger typists. I was shown my machine, introduced to the girls and instructed what to type making a 鈥渢op and four copies鈥� 鈥� each sheet to be headed 鈥淕C&CS鈥� which I eventually learnt was Gov. Code and Cypher School鈥�. I followed the instructions, inserted the paper and typed away on the wheezy old machine as near as I could reach to my normal speed of 80 wpm 鈥� a pretty nifty pace at that period of history on a manual machine. There was an immediate total silence in the room as the officers stared at me. Subsequently, I was told they thought a machine 鈥攇un had let loose!!

In time, I learnt that I was not working with the Brains of Britain but the brains of the world 鈥� yet word spread and they came from all over the place to watch me type. It was embarrassing. Subsequently, when our numbers swelled from 200 to 8,000 and with a host of experts operating on typewriters, teleprinters and Enigma machines, my expertise was eclipsed and my moment of fame faded into insignificance.

It was an enormous experience for me as the place filled with humanity, totally outside my ken and imagination. Brilliant men and women who arrived as cryptographers to attempt to break the Enigma Code at odds of 15,000,000 by 15,000,000 to 15,000,000 to one!! High-ranking naval officers 鈥� as by then I realised I was in German naval Intelligence, WRENS for the Enigma machines and the teleprinters, a variety of men and women with various skills and specialist knowledge plucked from universities, battlefields and oceans all over the globe. For a long time I was Alice in Wonderland as I assimilated into this amazing community 鈥� members of the Aristocracy, public schoolboys, graduates of universities, people who鈥檇 travelled the world, children of the Diplomatic Corps brought up in Embassies in far-flung places with strange sounding names. Eventually, I had a staff of 80 girls 鈥� 20 to man each of the three shifts and provide 20 for cover of leave and sickness.

In 1942, when Enigma began to be read on increasingly consecutive days, first a trickle and then almost as a flood, we had to turn out signals almost by the minute and organise distribution to cryptographers, Intelligence, translator and teleprinters, at times under great tension. We needed reams of paper 鈥� octavo-size 鈥� but it came sometimes as quarto and we had speedily to cut it all in halves. Eventually my anguished cries were fobbed off with a guillotine 鈥� which was antiquated and blunt!! We ran out of paper clips and papers were sliding all over the place. Each department was screaming for their information and yelling 鈥淟ives are at stake. Those at sea are in mortal danger鈥� or 鈥淒on鈥檛 you know there鈥檚 a war on?鈥� and at the end of our tether there would occasionally be floods of tears. But eventually it all slotted into place, and we got the whole thing running as on oiled wheels. But while this metamorphosis was taking shape we still had the problems of dealing with all these papers sliding around all over the large table, waiting for the messenger girls to collect and deliver.

Everyone was very conscious of immense shortages and salvage was of supreme importance.

At this time a young man who I knew vaguely as a friend from my youth-club days was in occasional correspondence with me following my stint as organiser of our Comforts Fund in Westcliff 鈥� now defunct as the township had scattered. He was serving as a nurse (army trained) on a hospital ship which had called in at New York to discharge wounded and during his three day 鈥渓eave鈥� mailed me a bouquet of long-stemmed roses which arrived at our cottage in a long narrow cardboard box. This was a new experience and as the box could not be reused in any shop because of its shape, my mother wanted to tear it up for paper salvage but acceded to my pleas to let me stand it in the corner of my bedroom in the very small space I shared with my two sisters.

Then, one day at the end of my tether with the flood of signals being de-cyphered, I thought of my precious box and wondered whether it could be pressed into war work. It was greeted by acclimations of delight. The signals fitted perfectly and with an old vase as a support could stand up in pristine order. All we had to plead for now were paper clips to make my joy complete.

Then we began to break the Italian Naval Codes and my Lt. Commander Superior asked, 鈥淚 suppose you couldn鈥檛 get your boyfriend to send you another bouquet?鈥� to which I replied 鈥淒on鈥檛 be funny, he鈥檚 probably still saving up to pay off his debt for the other one.鈥� But by magic, another arrived that very week so the Italians were very well organised from the start 鈥� unlike the behaviour of their Fleet Officers!!

Among all this urgency and drive 鈥� there was, nevertheless, a tremendous feeling of sympathy which we all shared and grasped eagerly. There were bereavements 鈥� constantly. In our Section 鈥� those of us with men at sea could watch their individual movements worldwide as the WRENS moved them on wall-to-wall maps, as they moved twixt packs of U-boats stalking the convoys. Staff had personal tragedies at home when cities were bombed. We had the gloom of losing so many ships, the Hood, the Ark Royal and many decimated convoys. The exhilaration when we followed Churchill鈥檚 order 鈥淪ink the Bismarck鈥� and after two sleepless nights on duty 鈥� we did!! The sight of unshaven men coming off night shift warned us something was brewing.

We all lived on a tremendous height and a deep low, but we supported each other to the utmost. There were weddings when we all pitched in with clothes and food coupons, with lingerie, and dregs from pre-War nail varnish bottles and perfumes. And the return from honeymoons with bits of cake and tiny sips of alcoholic drinks 鈥� the leftovers.

We had a dearth of men so they were shipped in from nearby barracks 鈥� the Yanks and Canadians and our own 鈥渂oys鈥� who were stationed nearby.

We had visits from celebrities 鈥� 鈥淒ickie鈥� as Lord Louis Mountbatten was affectionately known, from high-ranking service personnel, and from Churchill himself. We were told to clear our desks of all except the essential document on which we were working, were only to answer exactly what he asked- nothing more, and to keep what he said to us within the department. In the event, it was too taxing for him to go everywhere, so he stayed in one room and Heads of Departments brought documents to him.

At 4 p.m. in the afternoon whispers spread 鈥淗e鈥檚 leaving鈥� and we all downed tools to peer from our windows. He must have been aware of thousands of pairs of eyes peering out into the misty twilight of that cold dull November evening 鈥� and, on the front lawn, followed by his entourage, he stopped and gestured with his arms for us to come around him. We poured in our thousands from our huts into that cold misty evening, and I was but a few yards away as he stopped outside my door. His henchmen rushed hither and thither holding us at bay. He looked around, spotted a dustbin of the old zinc variety and motioned to his men to upturn it on the lawn and hoist him on to it. He then gave us a rousing speech congratulating us upon our work and urging us to greater effort saying we couldn鈥檛 possibly imagine how much we meant to our fighting men and women everywhere, and though it may be drudgery and backbreaking and sometimes frustrating and heartbreaking 鈥� we were frontliners in winning the war. We clapped and yelled and laughed and cried. They brought him down and he then got into the first ever stretch limousine I had ever seen 鈥� with dimmed windows which were new to me, and we ran behind his car as he drove off with his famous 鈥淰鈥� sign out of the small back aperture and his walking stick wagging around out of a side window.

We were oblivious to the cold and the damp and some of us had succumbed to tears.

Next day, I saw the famous telegram he sent of which I鈥檝e heard many versions 鈥� but I recall it as saying 鈥淪o pleased the Hens are laying without clucking鈥�, for if there had been one tiny cluck about BP, we鈥檇 have been wiped from the map of Britain and would most certainly have lost the War.

Within three weeks, they had put the fear of Heaven into us to such an extent that we fondly believed if an enemy agent thought any one of us had this knowledge, we鈥檇 have been kidnapped and our family kidnapped and tortured into oblivion!!

Well, all this was as they say:-

Yesterday is History
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift
That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 called the Present

And so the memory lingers on.

There were personal tragedies when the odd girl delivered her own baby 鈥� alone 鈥� in her billet; when things went missing mysteriously, and never recovered. Sometimes the odd scandal when liaisons were formed by people who were deserting partners at home - when a young American girl gave birth to a black baby. It was a microcosm of the world at large in a very small place but at the end we鈥檇 made it!!

In that great mosaic of victory we鈥檇 played quite a major part. One cryptographer who鈥檇 chaffed at being a naval officer with no ship, acceded at the end that he reckoned he鈥檇 killed more Germans than if he鈥檇 been on active service.

I kept in touch with some of my colleagues until they passed away, one by one. One of the girls in my gang is a Baroness in the House of Lords, and had me to tea there in the Members鈥� Dining Room. Another became an Ambassador and then Head of the Foreign Office. He had been alone on duty when over the teleprinter came the words 鈥渢he Fuhrer is dead鈥� and was the first man at BP, perhaps even in Britain to get this news. All precious memories to me in my dotage.

In 1955, when we held our celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the end of the War, I sat with my two little grandsons, aged 5 and 3, watching the march-past at the Cenotaph on TV, and was explaining who all the folk were 鈥� 鈥淭here are men from the highest place on earth 鈥� the Ghurkas. There are men from Australia, America, etc.鈥� There was one doughty man carrying a card proclaiming 鈥淏letchley Park鈥�!! The boys were entranced. The following Sunday I took them to visit Bletchley Park. As we entered the gates, I said 鈥淣ow you can see where Granny was in the War鈥�, to which my 5-year old said 鈥淏ut Gran, what about all those marching men?鈥濃�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹�︹��.

N.B. There comes to mind the day I had to traverse the grounds onto entirely 鈥渇oreign鈥� parts to deliver a document. I took a wrong path, opened a door, and while I stared in horror, six Wrens stood transfixed at my unfamiliar face. A huge machine stretched from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, hissing and spluttering as enormous leather straps responded to the motor and 400 valves propelling sheets of paper into a concertina on the floor. I beheld the very first computer!! I backed out, my heart thumping. 鈥淥ne day鈥� I was subsequently told 鈥渆very home will have one. Now I work at my grandsons鈥� laptops鈥︹�︹�︹�︹�︹��.

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