I am the proud owner of a wonderful book written by a remarkable lady, and personally signed by her – Secret Postings: Bletchley Park to the Pentagon by Charlotte Webb.
Charlotte, in her late eighties, still works at Bletchley Park, the code-breaking centre of England, where, in strict secrecy, she was stationed during the war and helped to make a great contribution towards victory and the saving of thousands of lives.
Through my friend, the author Kate Thompson, who facilitated a telephone call to Charlotte – known by the short version of her second Christian name, Betty – I experienced first-hand the ‘coming to life’ of this mysterious place.
Betty spoke of the long hours she worked and of the sometimes boring life she led at Bletchley, but she spoke with pride in her voice, as time has made her aware of the great importance of the work she was involved in. I got the impression, though, that the work she does now – welcoming guests, answering questions, giving talks and writing her memoir – is a much more interesting existence than code-breaking was.
One of the things that comes through when researching Bletchley Park is the secrecy. Very few people knew the place existed during the war, and it wasn’t until thirty years after the event that the real activity that took place there was revealed.
I visited Bletchley Park as part of my research for Brighter Days Ahead. It is a fascinating place, needing more than a day to absorb everything there is to see and experience. But for what I needed, as my story was only to have the Park as a background setting as very few scenes actually take place there, my visit furnished me with a clear understanding of the atmosphere and the conditions the people worked under, and also acquainted me with the machinery and some of the terms used at the time. In just one day, I was steeped in the knowledge of how life was for the code-breakers, and the girls who sat for hours feeding machines with words that meant nothing to them, but which had a massive impact on wartime decisions.
Brighter Days Ahead is a gritty tale set around the private lives of a few fictitious characters who worked at the Park. Although we know that the wonderful Alan Turing, one of the men based at Bletchley Park who contributed so much with his work developing the Enigma Machine, did have homosexual tendencies, Simon, one of my main characters, is not based on him. Nor are any of the events that happened to Simon in any way related to anyone who ever worked at the Park. They are a figment of my imagination, based on my knowledge of how homosexuality was perceived at the time; as a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment, according to the law of the land.
The secrecy surrounding Bletchley both during the war years and after was held with pride and honour, and I hope that comes across in my novel. Although the people who lived in the area were aware that something went on there, most thought that it was an administrative hub of the war. However, I have taken poetic licence in going a little further than that as it is very difficult not to mention the place and the function it serves when writing a novel and setting it in a certain place. And so, although I have allowed the friends and family of the characters who work at the Park to know where their loved ones were based – which didn’t happen during the war – I have not allowed them to know what went on at Bletchley. I hope that veterans will forgive me for this and recognize that I had no choice if my story was to have any substance.
I highly recommend a visit to Bletchley Park. There is so much to see and wonder over. Those who run the Park strive to keep the memory of the vital work carried out there alive in such a way as to make the experience an enjoyable and informative one. I will never forget my visit.
I hope you enjoyed Brighter Days Ahead. I would love to hear your thoughts and can be contacted through my website: www.authormarywood.com.
Much love to all, Mary.