By John McGregor
´Bletchley Park? I used to work there´.
´Where? When was that, wasn´t that the code-breaking place in the war, top secret´.
´Yes, Bletchley Park! I told you, I used to work there´
´Are you sure Mum? You know as you get older your mind forgets and your memory plays tricks on you -´.
´You cheeky sod. Yes, it was a long time ago. But we weren’t allowed to talk about it – and we didn’t´.
´Wow – do the others know?´
´Well no, I don’t think I´ve ever mentioned it. You just… didn’t´
My Mum Lucy and I were getting ready for a family get-together at her house over Christmas in 1995. The TV was on and a picture of a large red-brick country mansion house came on. The building was being rescued just in time before being pulled down because of the sudden revelation that Bletchley Park had been the home of British code-breaking during the war. It was said that the success of the operation shortened the war between two to four years, when the Allies were at last able to break the German forces complex messaging system and gain valuable advantage. Churchill did not want the information about Bletchley Park to get out after the war – and it didn’t.
All this was too good an opportunity for family celebration to pass up so when all the family was all together, after we had eaten and everything cleared away I told my siblings and our kids that our Mum had something to tell us – about how she helped to win the war. What followed was met with genuine amazement, and after the huge surprise more deep respect and love grew for a now-older lady, our wonderful mother who had brought up four of us. But a curious slice of her early life was revealed that we had never known about: our lovely Dad had passed away some seven years previously aged only sixty-six. We all knew the romantic story about their meeting and courtship – but this new development was something else.
Mum was an only child, Lucy Dorothy Newberry, born in 1923 to a modest couple called Grace and Arthur in a small town called Woburn in Bedfordshire. The area is dominated by Woburn Abbey, home of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. Most of the inhabitants of Woburn worked at The Abbey at some time in their lives: Lucy´s Mum Grace was a cook and Dad Arthur a gardener. Her uncle Henry was the Duchess´s chauffer. Their family home was owned by the estate, built at the turn of the twentieth century. It was in a block of eight terraced houses, just off the main road, but access was by the side of the block to travel round to the back where there was only the one entrance – no doors at the front, only windows. It was said the Duke did not wish to see washing out on the line in front, this area was kept clean and tidy. The large back gardens were used for growing fruit and vegetables.
After leaving the Woburn Primary School aged eleven Lucy graduated up to Bedford Girls School but had a considerable journey every day to get there. She biked to the next village, Ridgmont where there was a railway station. Here she waited for the train and put her bike in the Guards Van while she travelled the eleven miles to Bedford – then retrieving her bike pedalled on to school – and the reverse coming home – every day.
Lucy was sixteen when war broke out in 1939 with the whole country gripped with fear at the German onslaught of Europe. Having passed her ´School Certificate´, the equivalent of todays GCSEs well , eighteen year-old Lucy persuaded her parents to let her apply for work in Bedford, rather than try for local work in Woburn. Telling Grace and Arthur she was doing ´secretarial work´ but which she was not allowed to talk about it she started work at Bletchley Park.
That was OK with Grace – but not Arthur. It is hard to brand her Dad as a gossip, but he did like to know everything, and he strongly suspected Lucy knew a lot more than she was letting on.
C´mon Luce´, he would say, ´Just tell your old Dad was it is you do, I won’t tell anybody´.
´Don’t tell him Lucy!´Called Grace. ‘He’ll tell everybody, especially that barmaid in the Rose and Crown – she knows more about our family than I do!´ But Arthur was very protective of his only daughter. He would always come to meet her from the train, at night on shiftwork she would always see the light from his cigarette as he waited in the lane. Arthur didn’t approve of make-up and fashion, so Lucy had to hide things in her bag as she came and went. For a young country girl the town life had a lot to offer. Amongst the teenage girls the talk was of clothes, stockings – and young men. The Americans were also on their way amid much excitement.
In 1941 fate took a huge hand in Lucy´s life. She received a letter from a young sailor in Portsmouth, a New Zealander a long way from home. Prior to leaving home one of his boyhood mates had given him Lucy´s address, they had been pen-friends. Knowing no-one in England the young man training to be a pilot wrote to her outlining his position and respectfully asked if he could visit Lucy and her parents. He did, arriving in Bedford station in 1942. They married the following year in 1943, and my sister Jean was born in 1944. With this whirlwind happening in her life Mum left Bletchley Park and virtually forgot all about it – for fifty years.
Now we all questioned her: what work did she do, what did she see? Well, Mum described the legendary huts in the grounds of the estate, each with a different number according to which area and sector of the war they were covering. Written messages were to be dashed to and from the huts with great urgency, and Mum talked of professor-type old men at nights sometimes wrapped up in their dressing gown huddled over their work – but not averse to pinching young girls bottoms if they got the chance, although the word quickly got round as to who to avoid. To Mum it was her job and like many others in wartime Britain – you got on with it and kept your mouth shut.
Several years later over in the UK for my annual RAF reunion I realized I was near the legendary Bletchley Park. It was early morning but it seemed the place was open so I pulled into the car park. At the cheerful reception desk I was asked if I had any special reason for visiting and I said I thought my Mum used to work there in war time. I was told if you walk down the passage there is a large information book which details everyone who ever worked there – hopefully that might help? I rushed down the passage and there it was, a huge ledger. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for:
´LUCY DOROTHY NEWBURY – GENERAL OFFICE 1941 -42´
So there it was, in unbelievable print. My fantastic Mum actually worked in Bletchley Park all those years ago and played her part – her parents never knew – and neither did we. We do now!
