Worked at barrage balloon centre at Sutton outside Hull as telephonist and then trained others.Trained at Uxbridge and then Leighton Buzzard to plot and passed out as one of the first members of the WAAF. Then Fighter Command at Stanmore (Bentely Priory) 1939-40 (Dowding was head of fighter command then) but then left the airforce because mother was ill. Worked for Company Secretary of Reckitts. Saw the bombing of Hull. And then took a job as a civilian in Hut 3 Bletchley Park from 1941 (where decoded Enigma messages were translated) where she met MLC-J. Hut 3 is still standing and part of the Bletchley Park Museum.


From Max Hastings”The Secret War” (William Collins 2016)

“It is deeply impressive that those who worked at Bletchley sustained such dedication while working day after day, month after month, in a drab world devoid of glamour, excitement,variety, glory and decorations.In Hut 3 the watch sat around a horseshoe table, translating deciphered signals, each one resembling a telegraph flimsy, forwarded from Hut 6. Ideally decrypts weere composed of complete Gwrman words, but often there interruptions and corruptions in the texts, which demanded leaps of imagination from the linguists.”

“Many things about the 1939-45 era remain disputable, but few informed people would question the proposition that Bletchley was one of the most remarkable institutions the world has ever known, and one of the greatest achievements in Britain’s history, towering over any narrative of the nation’s part in ther conflict.”