The Debs of Bletchley Park and Other Stories (30 page)

‘It’s the most peaceful place. I could have sat down there forever. It was the loveliest place ever. I don’t know how people can forget. I only have to hear that music, Glenn
Miller, “That Old Black Magic”, and I’m back.’

Jane Fawcett has lived an astonishingly varied life. Looking back on it, and on her greatest memories, she is proud of performances as a professional singer. The fight to save
the Midland Grand Hotel and other magnificent Victorian buildings, changing attitudes towards architecture along the way, was a great personal triumph for her as much as for her boss Sir Nikolaus
Pevsner.

Jane had her own small personal role in the sinking of the
Bismarck
, but what of the codebreakers’ other achievements, saving countless lives by predicting which cities the German
bombers would attack each night, helping to sink the U-boats that were torpedoing the vital supplies from America?

Bletchley Park helped ensure victory in North Africa and Italy, and played a key role in the success of the D-Day landings. Without Bletchley, the D-Day deception operation that drastically cut
the number of German
troops confronting the Allies could not have gone ahead. The codebreakers also told Allied commanders what Hitler and his generals were thinking during
the invasion, and as part of that process Bletchley Park became the birthplace of the electronic computer. The importance of the work done there during the Second World War is undeniable, but what
does it mean to Jane? She’s achieved a great deal in her life. Where does her own time at Bletchley rate among all of that?

‘Singing has been the most personal thing, but I am also very passionate about saving great buildings, so both of those I was very happy to have, and of course I’ve been a mother and
a grandmother, and that really comes top of the list.

‘But as more and more evidence comes out about what Bletchley did, I’ve begun to realise that it was quite possibly the most important thing I did in my life. My contribution was
minute, of course, but I gave all I had and it succeeded. We did win the war.’

1
. Valerie Glassborow was the paternal grandmother of HRH Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.

Chapter 1

The National Archives (TNA) HW 3/135 Phoebe Senyard, ‘The History of Miss Senyard’s Party’, German Naval Section BP; interviews and correspondence with
Barbara Eachus (née Abernethy) from 1998 to 2003; interviews and correspondence with Diana Barraclough (née Russell-Clarke), May 1998; correspondence with Judie Hodsden, daughter of
Joan Bonsall (née Wingfield), 1 July 2014; interviews and correspondence with Ann Cunningham (née Lavell), May 1998 and 1999; interview with Gwen Watkins (née Davies) in 1998;
Gwen Watkins,
Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes: The Secrets of Bletchley Park
, Greenhill Books, London, 2006.

Chapter 2

Interview with Jane Fawcett (née Hughes), July 2014; interviews and correspondence with Diana Barraclough (née Russell-Clarke), May 1998; Joy Ettridge
(née Higgins),
Hut 6 Bletchley Park
found at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/­history/­ww2peopleswar/­stories/­42/­a4163942.shtml
;
Imperial War Museum (IWM) Lyn Smith
interview with Pamela Bagnall (née Draughn), Catalogue Number 28456; Bletchley Park Archives (BPA) interview with Ailsa Maxwell (née Macdonald); Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones,
My
Secret Life in Hut Six: One Woman’s Experiences at Bletchley Park
, Lion, Oxford, 2014.

Chapter 3

Interviews with Sarah ‘Sally’ Baring (née Norton), May 1998; BPA interview with Sarah Baring; Sarah Baring,
The Road to Station X
, Wilton 65, York,
2000; TNA HW 3/135 ‘The History of Miss Senyard’s Party’; interview with Harry Hinsley, May 1995; conversations with Keith Batey, 1998 to 2010; interviews, conversations and
correspondence with Mavis Batey (née Lever), 1998 to 2013; interview with Jane Fawcett (née Hughes), July 2014; F.H. Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War
(Abridged Edition), HMSO, London, 1994, pp54–8; TNA ADM 223/81; ADM 223/464; interview with Jim and Pamela Rose (née Gibson), May 1998; Jean Campbell-Harris from Jean Trumpington,
Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir
, Macmillan, London, 2014; Anne de Courcy,
Debs at War: How Wartime Changed Their Lives 1939–1945
, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005; BPA interview
with Evelyn Margaret ‘Peggy’ Senior; interview with Valerie Emery (née Travis), 1998; BPA interview with Sheila Lawn (née Mackenzie); BPA interview with Jean Tocher.

Chapter 4

Interview with Morag Beatty (née Maclennan), 1998; interview with Colette Cook (née St George-Yorke), June
2014; interview with Anne Hill
(née Zuppinger), 1998; Gwendoline Page (Ed.),
We Kept the Secret: Enigma Memories
, Reeve, Wymondham, 2002; interview with Barbara Quirk, 1998; interview with Joan Baily (née
Read), 1998.

Chapter 5

Interview with Jane Fawcett (née Hughes), July 2014; Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones,
My Secret Life in Hut Six
; interview with Christine Brooke-Rose, May 1998;
Christine Brooke-Rose,
Remake
, Carcanet, Manchester, 1996; interviews and correspondence with Barbara Eachus (née Abernethy) from 1998 to 2003; interview with Jean Howard
(née Alington), 1998; IWM Private Papers of Mrs J. Howard 12132; IWM Lyn Smith interview with Pamela Bagnall (née Draughn); interviews and correspondence with Ann Cunningham
(née Lavell), May 1998 and 1999; BPA interview with Barbara Mulligan.

Chapter 6

TNA HW 3/135 ‘The History of Miss Senyard’s Party’; interview with Pat Bing (née Wright), June 1998; BBC,
Horizon
, ‘The Strange Life
and Death of Dr Turing’, 1992; Joan Clarke, ‘Hut 8 and Naval Enigma Part I’, in F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp,
Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park
, OUP,
Oxford, 1993; Ralph Erskine, ‘Murray [Clarke], Joan Elisabeth Lowther (1917–1996)’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, Oxford University Press, 2004; TNA ADM
223/464; Hinsley,
British Intelligence in the Second World War
; BPA interview with Eileen Johnson (née Plowman); interview with Morag Beatty (née Maclennan),
1998; BPA interview with Mrs N.G. Edwards (née Harrison); interview with Shaun Wylie, May 1998; Page,
We Kept the Secret
; TNA HW 64/75 GC&CS Women’s
Committee.

Chapter 7

Interviews, conversations and correspondence with Mavis Batey (née Lever), 1998 to 2013; Mavis Batey,
Dilly: The Man Who Broke Enigmas
, Biteback, London, 2009;
Kerry Howard,
Dear Codebreaker: The Letters of Margaret and John Rock
, BookTower, Redditch, 2013; interview with Helen Jean Pitt-Lewis (née Orme), October 2014; TNA WO 208/3575
Williams, ‘The Use of Ultra’.

Chapter 8

Interview with Sarah ‘Sally’ Baring (née Norton), 1998; Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones,
My Secret Life in Hut Six
; BPA interview with Mrs A.
Mitchell (née Williamson); B. Jack Copeland and others,
Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers
, OUP, Oxford, 2006; interview with Marigold
Freeman-Attwood (née Philips), July 2014; BPA interview with Mrs Margaret ‘Maggie’ Mortimer (née Broughton-Thompson); interview with Jean Harvey (née Thompson),
1998; interview with Shaun and Odette Wylie (née Murray), 1998; IWM Lyn Smith interview with Pamela Bagnall (née Draughn); interview and correspondence with Susan Wenham
1998–99.

Chapter 9

Interview with Mary Every (née Wisbey), August 2014; Elizabeth Hawken,
Recollections of Bletchley Park
,
unpublished memoirs kindly
provided by her daughter Miss S.C.J. Hawken; interview with Marjorie Halcrow, 1998; conversations and correspondence with Rosemary Merry (née Calder), July 1999, February 2000; interview and
correspondence with Olive Hirst (née Humble), July 1999, November 2000 and October 2014; correspondence with Dorothy Smith (née Robertson), February and April 1999; interviews with
Betty Webb (née Vine-Stevens), July 1999, January 2000, April 2014; interview with Gladys Sweetland, February 2000; interview with Lady Marion Body (née Graham), May 2014.

Chapter 10

Sarah Baring,
The Road to Station X
; interview with Colette Cook (née St George-Yorke), June 2014; interview with Roma Davies (née Stenning), June 2014;
correspondence with Dorothy Smith (née Robertson), February and April 1999; interviews and correspondence with Barbara Eachus (née Abernethy) from 1998 to 2003; interviews with Betty
Webb (née Vine-Stevens), July 1999, January 2000, April 2014; letter from Julie Lydekker, May 1999; TNA HW 3/135 ‘The History of Miss Senyard’s Party’; interviews,
conversations and correspondence with Mavis Batey (née Lever), 1998 to 2013; Ralph Erskine, ‘Murray [Clarke], Joan Elisabeth Lowther (1917–1996)’,
Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography
; Kerry Howard,
Dear Codebreaker
; interview with Jane Fawcett (née Hughes), July 2014; interview with Marigold Freeman-Attwood (née Philips), July
2014; Joy Ettridge (née Higgins),
Hut 6 Bletchley Park
; BPA interview with Mrs Margaret ‘Maggie’ Mortimer (née
Broughton-Thompson);
interview with Mary Every (née Wisbey), August 2014; Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones,
My Secret Life in Hut Six
; interview and correspondence with Susan Wenham, 1998–99;
interviews and correspondence with Olive Hirst (née Humble), July 1999, November 2000 and October 2014; obituary of Christine Brooke-Rose,
Independent
, 27 March 2012; interview with
Lady Marion Body (née Graham), May 2014.

For the General Reader

Sarah Baring,
The Road to Station X
(Wilton, 2000)

Mavis Batey,
Dilly: The Man Who Broke Enigmas
(Biteback, 2009)

Asa Briggs,
Secret Days: Codebreaking in Bletchley Park: A Memoir of Hut Six and the Enigma Machine
(Frontline Books, 2011)

Christine Brooke-Rose,
Remake
(Carcanet, 1996)

Jean Chitty,
Kent House Colombo: Letters from a Wren, May 1944 to November 1945
(Belhaven, 1994)

Anne de Courcy,
Debs at War: How Wartime Changed Their Lives 1939–1945
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005)

Marion Hill,
Bletchley Park People: Churchill’s Geese that Never Cackled
(The History Press, 2004)

Kerry Howard,
Dear Codebreaker: The Letters of Margaret and John Rock
(BookTower Publishing, 2013)

Anne Lewis-Smith,
Off Duty! Bletchley Park Outstation Gayhurst Manor
(Traeth, 2006)

Doreen Luke,
My Road to Bletchley Park
(M. & M. Baldwin, 2003)

Sinclair McKay,
The Lost World of Bletchley Park: The Illustrated History of the Wartime Codebreaking Centre
(Aurum, 2013)

Sinclair McKay,
The Secret Life of Bletchley Park
(Aurum, 2010)

Sinclair McKay,
The Secret Listeners: How the Wartime Y Service Intercepted the Secret German Codes for Bletchley Park
(Aurum, 2013)

Hugh Melinsky,
A Code-breaker’s Tale
(Larks Press, 1998)

Gwendoline Page,
Growing Pains: A Teenager’s War
(Book Guild, 1994)

Gwendoline Page,
They Listened in Secret
(Reeve, 2003)

Gwendoline Page (Ed.),
We Kept the Secret: Enigma Memories
(Reeve, 2002)

Mair and Gethin Russell-Jones,
My Secret Life in Hut Six: One Woman’s Experiences at Bletchley Park
(Lion, 2014)

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore,
Enigma: The Battle for the Code
(Cassell, 2004)

Elisa Segrave,
The Girl from Station X: My Mother’s Unknown Life
(Aurum, 2013)

Phil Shanahan,
The Real Enigma Heroes
(The History Press, 2010)

Michael Smith,
Bletchley Park: The Code-Breakers of Station X
(Shire, 2013)

Michael Smith,
Britain’s Secret War 1939–45: How Espionage, Codebreaking and Covert Operations Helped Win the War
(Andre Deutsch, 2011)

Michael Smith,
Station X: The Code Breakers of Bletchley Park
(Pan, 2004)

Michael Smith,
The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park’s Role in the War Against Japan
(Biteback, 2009)

Michael Smith,
The Secrets of Station X: How the Bletchley Park Codebreakers Helped Win the War
(Biteback, 2011)

James Thirsk,
Bletchley Park: An Inmate’s Story
(M. & M. Baldwin, 2012)

Jean Trumpington,
Coming Up Trumps: A Memoir
(Macmillan, 2014)

Gwen Watkins,
Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes, The Secrets of Bletchley Park
(Greenhill, 2006)

Charlotte Webb,
Secret Postings: Bletchley Park to the Pentagon
(BookTower Publishing, 2011)

Irene Young,
Enigma Variations: Love, War and Bletchley Park
(Mainstream, 2000)

For the Enthusiast

Ralph Bennett,
Behind the Battle: Intelligence in the War with Germany 1939–1945
(Pimlico, 1999)

Ralph Bennett,
Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy 1941–45
(Hamish Hamilton, 1989)

Ralph Bennett,
Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944–45
(Hutchinson, 1979)

Stephen Budiansky,
Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II
(Viking, 2000)

Peter Calvocoressi,
Top Secret Ultra
(M. & M. Baldwin, 2011)

B. Jack Copeland and others,
Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers
(OUP, 2010)

Robin Denniston,
Thirty Secret Years: A.G. Denniston’s Work in Signals Intelligence 1914–1944
(Polperro Heritage Press, 2007)

Peter Donovan and John Mack,
Code Breaking in the Pacific
(Springer, 2014)