The Girl from Station X (26 page)

. . . I have got the best job of any woman in the Hut now, I consider, and the one with the most responsibility and Hut 3 is the most important Hut there. I suppose, in a way, it is
a big tribute to me, but I am so strung up emotionally just now, it doesn’t mean a lot to me . . .

She was wrong about this; it would come to mean a great deal to her. In later life, despite my father’s mockery, she clung on proudly to what she had done at Bletchley.

I too was proud, indeed triumphant, when I read:
I have got the best job of any woman in the Hut . . .

October 12th 1942.

A typical day on the 4 to 12 shift, as I am at present, so that the sheer agony of it may be placed on record for me to look back on, perhaps one day in the far
distant future when this period may be seen like a nightmare and be mercifully semi-observed in oblivion so that I shall remember only the glory of my position as the first and only woman on the
watch and holding the most responsible position of any woman in the Hut, ‘the thin end of the wedge’ as Connie describes it.

I do not know why it does not pacify me more than it does as in a way it is a great tribute to me and more especially so, as it is through Lavers, whose standard of efficiency is 100
per cent, that I am there, but there the matter stands, it gives me no pleasure and I am miserable. And so to a description of one of countless days of misery: I wake at 10.30 and Mrs Hunt brings
me my breakfast on a tray, it is delicious and typically consists of a boiled egg, often a half slice of orange, which of course is almost unprocurable these days, some Vitawheat and marmalade
which I adore and a cup of tea, often accompanied by some cereal if I have any and which I eat out of pure greed. After this I stay in bed reading and sometimes writing until about 11.30 or 12 and
this is rather bliss, after this I get up (I have a regular routine of doing this) first of all cleaning my buttons and then dressing slowly. Just before lunch I often have a drink from my gin
bottle and orange, which I keep in a queer kind of store in my bedroom which acts as a kind of wine cellar and helps cheer me up at times. After lunch, during which we discuss mainly food and the
wireless, also doings in L. Buzzard, I help Mrs Hunt wash up and listen to long rigmaroles about her family and who married who in L.B., then I retire to my room and lie on my divan by the window,
which has a lovely view over the garden, down to the river and canal, and beyond and read or write again. Mrs H. brings me up a cup of tea about 3 and I leave here about 3.30, usually bumping along
Hillside Road and up the Heath Rd, to pick up people either at the post office or at the Duncan Arms in Great Brickhill. Even now, turning in at the gates of B.P depresses me quite unaccountably,
all along the road from the station are streams of weedy looking men who somehow look as though they had put on their uniforms for a joke and didn’t know how to wear them and greasy haired
women with ugly shoes. At four o clock one has to leave the car at the end of a long row in the car park and walk up to the huts, passing WAAFs who never think of saluting and so into the hut, a
narrow passage with coat hangers down it and rows of civilian tin hats, of a queer high topee-like shape on a shelf at the top. The passage is so narrow that everyone knocks into you as you try to
hang up your coat and the cloakroom is literally 2 ft by 2 and you can scarcely get the door open, let alone get inside if you so much as want to comb your hair in front of a glass at 4 o clock.
The whole proceedings is the essence of discomfort and sordidity. Having gone through these agonies I have to take over from the NDO on the watch, where I sit under a brilliant light and often have
so much to do that I think I am going mad. It necessitates continuous running between the watch and our room to check up on maps and cards and the usual inevitable conversations with Hut 4 over the
direct line. Last night I had Frost and a mass of stuff, which was a bit too much. BHJ (Brooke Holding Jones) is infinitely preferable but Putt and Ramsbottom are the best. For dinner one has to
walk right over to the cafeteria, usually in the dark now and more often than not stand in a queue, unless you go very late. I have got such a phobia about the whole place now that I can hardly
smile and am usually so worried about the work that I can think of nothing else outside it.

I like Faure best on the watch, he is rather sweet. At twelve, we hand over, sally forth into the night and pick up one’s passengers in the hall, walk with them to the car and
then struggle to get out of the car park and drive home. If it is foggy, it is rather hell, especially if one is tired. And I usually get home about a quarter to two, eat a small meal that Mrs Hunt
puts in my room, read a bit and then sleep, dreaming usually about my job. It is a queer life! It is the atmosphere of intellectuality, of abnormality at the Park that is so depressing. I loathe
every moment of it. The WAAFs in the hut are rather sweet. I believe they are miserable too and don’t have much fun.

I worried about my mother’s midday intake of gin and orange – she had obviously already begun the habit of solitary drinking, using the alcoholic’s classic excuse,
to cheer me up.
Despite her job’s prestige, she still seemed to hate Bletchley, and recorded with envy:
Lettice went to the Air Ministry today and loves
it there . . . there is no one to talk to now.
She missed Lettice.

On 15 October, Lavers
bade us a fond farewell in the watch book . . . and we are to be the operation control of W/Cdr Jones, and the NDO, in spite of our reports, is to remain on the
watch. I knew it was inevitable.
So Anne still had to fill in on the watch, the position of which she was so proud, yet which also caused her such anxiety.

In her diary then she shows some self-awareness:
spoilt all my life . . . wanting to be first in everything and be the most important person.
But then she exhorts
herself:
do not be interested in yourself but rather see yourself as a unit in something bigger, it is the way one looks at things and faces up to difficulties that matters, not the
things themselves.

She ends that passage on a more positive note:
there is a kind of exaltation in the fact that now you have the chance to prove yourself, to give back to England a little of what you
have taken from her and taken for granted all your life. For the first time you’re to be judged on your own merits and are given the chance to show what you are worth and it is glorious in a
way.

What a pity I had never heard her say this out loud. It was my grandmother’s words to me, ‘You must take life with both hands and fight it!’ which I remembered.

As I read my mother’s Bletchley diaries of autumn 1942, two things became apparent. One was that, despite what I had seen of her as her daughter, she clearly was capable
of applying herself to a supremely difficult and exacting task, but, disappointingly, at the same time her trait of ‘I can’t struggle any more’ was still there. All the time she
was working as NDO, she was also taking steps to leave.

It has the most most awful effect on me in the world, this place . . . When one meets someone from outside, one breathes a new atmosphere of common sense, gaiety
and the things that matter in life . . . One feels ashamed of being part of the Park . . . Anyway, I have the king job, better than Kay’s, Connie’s or Elizabeth’s, and so
whatsoever they think of me, they must have respect for my work! Small comfort compared with other things, but at any rate I have proved that in fair and square competition with really intelligent
people – and they are 100 per cent – that I can more than hold my own and get to the top.

Towards the end of October, Lavers left Bletchley to go back to sea and Guy Haslam took over his job. Now Anne’s mood changed again and she found her job both challenging and exciting.

October 23rd 1942.

Was Duty Officer for the evening. I loved it. I adore the job and last night was v. exciting. I am getting much more self-confidence and feel I really am beginning
to know it.

The next day saw the start of the Second Battle of Alamein:

The balloon has gone up at last and we have attacked in Egypt. Am thrilled to bits over it and wish we could drive them out altogether. Mrs Roosevelt arrived last
night and is staying at Buckingham Palace. The ‘Alfredo’, ‘Prosperina’, and ‘Tempestea’ are in the news as far as I’m concerned. If we do not get the
‘Alfredo’ it will not be our fault!’

Here she seems to be dangerously close to revealing confidential information concerning enemy Italian ships, the sinking of which was an essential part of the Allied operation.

On 26 October she reported having being told by Wing Commander Jones:

‘I am prepared to go to any lengths to get you any job you want and a really good one’. He said that the new NDO should be here in about a fortnight and
then he wanted a suitable overlap before he was willing to release me. He asked if there were no other job I wanted at B.P. I said I wanted a change, he said ‘to get away from all these queer
people?’ and I said ‘yes’. The outcome was that he is going to make some enquiries, but no one could have been kinder or more helpful and they all do seem to think I have done a
pretty good job of work here, which is of value to me, as the standard is absolutely tip top and if you are inefficient in any way, out you go.

I was delighted to find Anne again displaying qualities I personally had never known in her – decisiveness and resolve.

When my father was diagnosed with cirrhosis in autumn 1974, she had gone to pieces. Luckily her women friends rallied round, helpfully ringing nursing agencies so that my father could come home
from hospital to die. Was I being unfair in thinking that the strength that my mother had shown that autumn thirty-two years earlier would never quite surface again?

On 8 November 1942, the Allies landed in North Africa.

0110 hrs. Target is Day 1
+
2. I was terrified in a way of being NDO at such a moment and yet in a way honoured too, at being chosen as responsible enough
to hold that position. Life at the moment is like a queer nightmare . . . The outside world does not seem to exist for us. It is a tremendous strain as well and sometimes I long for rest and yet
when I am not NDO I can’t bear to do anything else. All the ships got through to Gib. without one being damaged and practically unsighted, Axis sources believed this to be a convoy breaking
through to Malta, a/c from Elmas attacked repeatedly. The first stage of ‘Operation Torch’ has been successful.

0130.9.11

We landed airborne troops and seized several a/dromes. There are about ¼ of a million troops involved, a number of them being British, dressed in American
uniforms . . .
The Daily Mirror
says that Admiral Cunningham is in command of the British naval forces and it is the biggest naval force that has ever sailed. There are reports that the
French fleet has left Toulon to attack us, if so, surely the Italian fleet must sail as well. Operation Torch is the biggest thing since the Battle of Britain in this war and befits its
name.

0120.10.11

We have landed almost on the Tunisian frontier. Everything has gone far better and quicker than expected but there is French resistance and the GAF
[German Air Force]
are expected to aid them against us in Tunisia . . . All our a/c had American markings and the pilots, lots of whom were RAF were dressed in American uniforms. So far
it seems this has not been discovered and when it is, what a coup for German propaganda. The French fleet has not left Toulon, probably due to lack of a/c carriers, if they do they will meet with a
hot reception from submarines.

‘Torch’ is absolutely the top. Everything seems to have been thought of.

0115. Armistice Day

‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.’ I wonder how different my life would have been if my father had not been
killed. Uncle Matthew thinks I have much the same approach in life that he had and the same will that nothing can stop. I wonder?

This statement of my mother’s made me sad. Perhaps it was true that she had inherited her father’s strong will, but if so, she had so often used it to shirk responsibility and to get
her own way. But he would certainly have been pleased with her work at Bletchley. And Edward Thomas, whom she looked up to, congratulated her:

for the first time Edward has felt unnerved by this job, and the amount of directives we now have to deal with. He said he thought I had stood up to it v. well
indeed, because the strain must have been terrific for me and this praise from Edward means a lot . . . This week has been the most important week for us of the whole war and the 4 to midnight
shift is usually the busiest and most difficult to cope with . . . Friday the 13th again and so ends my week of being NDO, perhaps the most momentous week in the history of the Navy yet in this
war. Certainly the most responsible position I am ever likely to hold in my whole life again and as such, I pay a tribute to myself, as it is a colossal strain really.

I realised now why Edward had held her in high esteem – he, perhaps more than anyone, had seen her at her best. When I later showed Tony Sale, the genius who had rebuilt the Colossus
computer after it was destroyed after the war – on Churchill’s orders, with other secret material at Bletchley Park – my mother’s diaries about her work at Bletchley, he
pointed out that it was almost certainly she who was highlighted at the end of Edward Thomas’s essay in
Codebreakers
: