大象传媒

Part 1 Family life, and cypher work at the Foreign Office, London
1939 鈥� September 1943

When war broke out in 1939 I was 20 and working as a clerical officer in the Civil Service in a department called the Clearing Offices. They were in the old premises of the Imperial War Museum in South Kensington and were concerned with the Trading with the Enemy Act from the First World War. I worked in the Turkish section and was paid 拢10 a month. I went to work every day by train from Orpington where I lived with my parents, my elder sister Nancy, and my three younger brothers 鈥� Frank, and Alec and Maurice who were twins. In the summer I travelled up early on workmen鈥檚 trains (which were very cheap) and remember some lovely walks on fine mornings through the 鈥減osh鈥� squares, such as Eton and Chester Squares, and going into St Michael鈥檚 Chester Square to say a prayer as war loomed.

On Sunday September 3rd it was a beautiful sunny morning and we listened to the broadcast by Neville Chamberlain in the drawing room with the French windows open on to the garden. Almost immediately the Air Raid siren sounded but it turned out to be a false alarm. But it was a very nasty moment. The day before, when I would ordinarily have worked in the morning, we were told not to go in because of the evacuation of children from London and I spent all the morning making blackout curtains for the windows.

Alec, who was also in the Civil Service, in the Forestry Commission, had been given a sealed envelope at work to be opened if war was declared. The contents instructed him to report in Bristol on Tuesday 5th, and he left home at 8am. According to my diary I reported to the Post Office on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so evidently had been told not to go to work. Unfortunately my diary is then blank until 25 October. During September Frank and Maurice made a concrete underground air raid shelter in our garden.

The Government recommended that people should not congregate in large numbers because of the danger of air raids, but as a fairly regular churchgoer, sometimes with one of my parents but more often with Pam, a friend from Guides & Rangers, I felt now was the time if ever there was one to say a prayer. So I went to Evensong, complete with respirator. There were only a handful of people in the congregation. I believe cinemas and theatres were closed for a while but as the 鈥榩honey war鈥� as it was known, went on, they were re-opened and I went quite often to the theatre in London, mainly with office friends, and to the cinemas in Orpington and Petts Wood with one or other member of the family. Blackout was maintained on trains by blue light bulbs in the carriages, and keeping the blinds down. At work, one of our messengers who had been called up into the Navy came in to tell us of his survival after the 鈥楻oyal Oak鈥� was sunk in Scapa Flow on 14th October.

At the end of December 1938 my father had left the Italian bank. They were presumably cutting down the staff because of the prospect of approaching war. He went to work for [?Coutts] Bank, which was evacuated to Osterley Park. He had 鈥榙igs鈥� there and came home at weekends. Later he worked for the National Assistance Board in St Kilda Road in Orpington, so lived at home. He joined the Fire Guard (as I did in ?1943) and did fire watch duty periodically. On November 9th 1939 Nancy, who worked at the Bank of England, was evacuated with other staff from London to Whitchurch in Hampshire but came home most weekends. My mother volunteered for local war work and was appointed a billeting officer but never had any duties in that capacity. In the summer of 1940 the twins, who were 18 in May, enlisted in the army 鈥� Maurice on 18th June and Alec on 29th July.

On 29th March 1940 I celebrated my 21st birthday. It was a Friday and I met Nancy for lunch and we went shopping. In spite of the war I had some very nice presents: a black faced gold wristwatch from my parents, a black calf handbag from Auntie Louie and Uncle Harry (he worked at Mappin and Webb, the jewellers), scent bottles from Auntie Lizzie, 10/6d from Auntie Tommy, and from friends a writing case, a sewing case and a compass.

Orpington was on the main line from the coast to London and during the evacuation of Dunkirk in June 1940 I saw trains full of soldiers passing through and a British Expeditionary Force Red Cross train.

The work of the Clearing Offices was running down and in February 1940 the office had moved to Eccleston Place near Victoria. Preparations were afoot to evacuate the Offices to a secret destination which we discovered afterwards to be Lytham St Anne鈥檚, but by the summer some staff were being dispersed and on 19th August I was told to report to the Foreign Office two days later.

At 9.30 am on 21st August 1940 I walked through the main entrance of the Foreign Office, opposite No 10 Downing Street. After my credentials had been checked by a policeman I was taken up the Grand Staircase and along to the Locarno Room, a huge and magnificently decorated room which was now the home of the Cyphering Department. I was astonished as I went in through the door - the room was crammed full of tables where staff were seated coding and cyphering.

I was soon being initiated into the intricacies of the work. For security reasons all staff were issued with tickets to see 鈥楥areless Talk Costs Lives鈥� which was on at the luxurious Curzon Cinema. Later on I was among those who were entrusted with rare telegrams between Churchill and Roosevelt, most of their messages presumably going by other means. The work was not difficult, requiring only elementary arithmetic and a reasonable command of English, but much of it was rather boring. As we worked with pencils all the time, to save on pencils we were issued with metal holders to use once they were too short to hold in the hand, and we competed to see who could use a pencil to the shortest length before giving up and handing it in for a replacement.

When I started I learned I would be working on shifts including night duty. My first week of night duty started four days later on Sunday night. There were facilities in the basement for a cooked meal for the night shift for which we paid 7/6d for the week. Air raids on London had started a few days before I went to the Foreign Office and there were a number during my first week of nights. When an air raid was imminent we would have to traipse from the Locarno Room down to the War Rooms in the basement with our arms full of books and whatever work we were engaged on until the All Clear.

In August the last day shift went off at 9 pm but because raids started earlier as winter approached, making it difficult for the day shift to get home, the night shift was gradually extended. By October the night shift was 6 pm 鈥� 8 am and in November 5 pm 鈥� 8 am. By March 1941 it was back to 6 pm 鈥� 8 am and by May did not start until 8 pm. There were bunks in the War Rooms so we could have a rest period during the long night shift.

Some time in the latter part of 1940 the basement was fitted out to take the whole of the Cyphering Department and we spent all our working hours underground. Initially we were able to go to the India Office canteen for a cooked evening meal, but soon after we had moved into the basement permanently someone was engaged to cook a meal for the night shift.

Paula, a friend who lived opposite me at home, worked in the Admiralty, I think in the great chunky building on Horse Guards Parade, known as Lenin鈥檚 tomb. Her mother bought a sun-ray lamp to make up for the lack of daylight. They very kindly invited me to use their lamp, and from January 1942 I would sit scantily clad in their front room, with goggles, for several minutes back and front. In July 1942 my mother and I went to Gamages and purchased a rather less sophisticated sun-ray lamp so I was able to enjoy the facility at home. My mother continued to use it for many years and replaced it with a similar one in the 1960s. This was still around when my brother Frank died in 1991 and I donated it to the Hampshire County Museum, complete with goggles.

Saturday 10th May 1941 was the last night of one of my weeks on night duty. Westminster was the centre of a very heavy air attack with the Abbey and Houses of Parliament being firebombed and seriously damaged. We knew nothing about it, being deep below ground, although we often heard thumps when a raid was in progress. There is no mention of it in my diary as strictly speaking we were not supposed to keep diaries and were absolutely forbidden to mention anywhere anything that might 鈥榞ive comfort to the enemy鈥�. I vividly recall the sight that met us as we emerged on the following morning into the brilliant May sunshine to find Parliament Square full of fire tenders and hoses. There was no transport of any kind available so I and another girl on the same shift who also lived in Orpington decided to start walking and had to pick our way through the tangle of hosepipes. We reached Lewisham before we found a bus going our way. Those outside central London had no idea of the devastation that had taken place during the night.

On one occasion, when on my way home after the last day shift, there was a heavy air raid going on when I got to Orpington Station. I waited a while for it to die down as did a number of other people and eventually decided to make a dash for it. With the sound of shrapnel clattering on the roofs I had never run so fast before!

On most days I had lunch with friends. Shadow (Joan Shadbolt) a friend from Guides and Rangers was also a Civil Servant working near Whitehall, and other friends were still in the Clearing Offices. I also met Pam a neighbour and a friend from Guides and Rangers, and Joyce Barham, a school friend, who were both training as nurses at Westminster Hospital.
Some time after I went to the Foreign Office, my friend Bee [Beatrice Thake, later Thomas] was transferred to the Colonial Office cypher department and was also working on shifts. We met frequently when we were both on day shifts, and, in summer sometimes had a picnic and relaxed in deckchairs in St James鈥� Park. A few times when we were both working nights, we met on one of the upper floors where there was a passage between the Foreign Office and the Colonial Office.

The entertainment world was in full swing in London and I often went to the theatre or cinema with one or more of my friends and made an occasional visit to the theatre with members of the family. At the theatre, to avoid standing in a queue, you could pay 6d for the hire of a collapsible stool that would keep your place, and long lines of stools outside theatres were a common sight.

From July 1940, Frank and I were the only ones living at home, but Nancy and the twins were often home for weekends or longer, and we all enjoyed walks in the lovely Kent countryside and visiting our local cinemas.

When clothes rationing started coupons were required to buy any clothing, which was very limiting. However, boucl茅 wool, if one could find it, did not require coupons, and I knitted two suits for myself. Skivers [leather made from split dressed sheepskins] were also not rationed, and I bought several in different colours and made myself handbags and mittens.

Frank was called up in June 1941 and went into the Royal Air Force Volunteer reserve. He trained as a wireless operator and was at several different locations. In June 1942, he came home on embarkation leave. He was home again at least twice on leave before we got a telegram from overseas in November. Three weeks later we had a letter saying he was in West Africa.

Now I was the only one living at home and because of shift work, I was often at home for a large part of the day. To widen my horizons, I bought a bicycle, a Raleigh with 3 speed and dynamo, and had some exhilarating rides into Kent and Surrey. Apart from the occasional military convoy the roads were comparatively free of traffic because of petrol rationing. Later on, Maurice had a bike at home so sometimes the two of us were able to go out together. I also had some very enjoyable holidays during this period, two in the Lake District with Bee and others in Yorkshire, Shropshire and North Devon. Also a few days in Whitchurch, Hampshire, where Nancy was evacuated.

In February 1942, when Maurice was serving in Northern Ireland, we received a telegram to say he had been in an accident and was in Holywood Hospital in Belfast on the danger list. He had been riding a motorbike on duty and a horse had taken fright at the noise and shied, kicking him in the kidneys. My mother and Alec were given travel warrants and the following morning I went with my mother to London. Alec met us there and in the afternoon they caught a train to Stranraer en route to Northern Ireland. Three days later Mother sent a telegram to say Maurice was out of danger and on 3rd March she and Alec returned home. After two months in hospital Maurice made a full recovery and came home on leave towards the end of April. I think as a result of this alarm we shortly afterwards had a telephone installed.

In January 1942, my second cousin Maurice Hanna was admitted to Orpington Military Hospital with brittle bone disease. He stayed there for several months and he and his parents often visited us. The hospital was built in the First World War and had been closed and then reopened. All the patients wore bright blue uniforms and red ties. On more than one occasion a friend or friends pushed him from the hospital in a wicker spinal carriage. It was quite a distance to our house and much of it up hill.

Most of the other cypher officers at the Foreign Office were career civil servants like myself but there were some called Temporary Secretaries who were doing the job as their war work. Most probably had connections in the diplomatic service, and there were several elderly men. There was also the wife of a well-known orchestra conductor [Constant Lambert] and among the young ladies was Clarissa Churchill, Sir Winston鈥檚 niece. She later became Lady Eden. Rather to our chagrin, the Temporary Secretaries would work in the cypher room to learn the job and would then be posted overseas. As they were not all particularly suited to the job it was even more galling. At one point a friend and I asked to be released to join the Forces but of course this was refused. However, in the middle of May 1943 three fellow clerical officers were posted to Algiers and this started the ball rolling. In July 1943 I was asked if I would go to Lisbon for a few weeks if necessary, to help with the extra cyphering during a conference on the Italian surrender. In the event the staff on the spot said they could cope so that came to nothing.

Then on 23rd August I was asked to go to Cairo, in Egypt, with our Embassy to the Yugoslav Government in exile, which was moving in anticipation of Yugoslavia being freed. Dorothy Brooks, with whom I was already quite friendly, was the other cypher officer chosen to go. We were given a kit allowance, and extra clothing coupons, and had to visit the Censor. For the next three weeks, as well as work, there was shopping to do, inoculations, applying for a passport, opening my first bank account and farewell visits to friends and relatives.

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