Verified Purchase. Just my kind of book! The publisher, demanding that the author write only about the Bletchley girls who were still living and could tell their own stories, seemed to be trying to assure warmth and human drama. But in writing about these 15 living women, author Tessa Dunlop produces more of a sociological treatise than a book about real women. The women are young and, for the most part, middle class, away from home for the first time and setting new precedents for British women as they enter the critical program of code-breaking, recording and collecting at Bletchley.
The amount of secrecy under which the women agreed to join in and continue the work in progress amazes me. They didn't even know what they were going to be doing after they were recruited and screened for the jobs and they couldn't talk about it once they started. In fact, I the reader, still don't know exactly what some of them were doing except that it was a mindlessly boring matching of pluses and zeroes for many of them.
The young women far outnumbered the middle-aged professors who were the brains of the outfit and there doesn't seem to have been much promiscuity at Bletchley. Even when a young woman had a fiancee on the outside who was killed in action, their story was coldly reported as if in a newspaper column. I guess an author has to make a major decision about how to tell the story of 15 different women in a single book. Does she treat each woman individually, in a separate chapter, or does she write about them consecutively according to topic? I think a great weakness of this book is that the author chose not to treat each woman individually per chapter, but told their stories by topic, such as the uniforms they wore; the great secrecy they had to maintain, their housing problems, the monotony of the work, etc.
In doing so, the women rarely came to life in the book and the characters seemed composed of factual bits and pieces. Whether they had headphones strapped to their heads round the clock to listen for German voices, sat for hours on end at typex machines typing in coded messages, or were involved with the infamous Colossus and Bombe decoder computers, these hearty and determined girls who were bound to secrecy, were completely dedicated to work for King and Country to help aid and shorten the war that was taking Europe by storm.
These women loved what they did, they did not think for a moment of breaking their signed contracts of the Official Secrecy Act knowing that to do so would be deemed and act of treason punishable by imprisonment or death. Amazingly their stories show great comradery during times of duress and years of boring monotonous work environments. They bravely performed their duty, but had fun doing it making sure they had outside fun to lighten up the truth that there was a bloody war on and people were killed by the thousands every day.
You will meet many famous military heroes in this wonderful tale, as well as famous British politicians and upper crust society celebrities of the era. This was the crucial time when the war had to be won soon before more lives were lost.
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Although in my opinion the author switches ladies to rapidly within the story often confusing the reader who she was talking about, I have to admit by the time I finished the book I understood and appreciated her method and why she chose to unfold the story in the manner that she did. My initial take half way through was that there was too much background information on the women before getting to the core story of their work at Bletchley Park. But, within the second half where you learn just how their work impacted their lives after the war was over, gave me a better sense of the totality of their lives before, during, and after the war.
A little bit of editing to the book could have made this a five star review but as it is I give it four stars for an important piece of wartime history well told. I've read numerous accounts about Bletchley Park and the intense project to break German wartime codes. This is my first with numerous first-hand memories of people from that project. Women in their 90s discuss the effort and how it affected their lives. I learned a lot from these women and left with a stronger respect for their important but unsung work.
However, I was distracted by the author's writing structure and inclusion of many mundane details. The structure is a chronological recounting of her journey to find and interview her subjects. It results in a choppy delivery. I would have preferred a stronger focus on the women's accounts. If you want to know what it was "really like" at Bletchley, without the frills or the folderol of modern television accounts, this is your book. The reality, as they say, is actually more interesting, even if less flashy, than the stories being put about these days.
Give it a shot. The book arrived from the UK in perfect condition and quicker than anticipated. Terrific read!
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So glad the author captured the stories of these amazing ladies and their unique contribution to history. All were in their 90s when the book was written. Provides a balanced and honest account of what it was like to work a variety of jobs at Bletchley Park by ladies from different backgrounds. Highly recommended reading and fantastic service from the seller. One person found this helpful. See all reviews. Top reviews from other countries. The idea of focussing on the lives and wider experiences of the Bletchley women is brilliant and I came to this with high hopes.
Although her material was good, the quality of the writing got in the way. I found the organisation around themes reduced my sense of connection with the women themselves. What really spoiled my enjoyment, however, were errors that should have been picked up by an editor or proof reader: apostrophes in possessive pronouns and misused words. I was left with the impression that Tessa Dunlop is a better researcher than she is a writer, and the editor or proof reader was asleep at the wheel.
It gives an insight into the very compartmentalised and secret work they did and the severe penalties for breaking the official secrets act. My mother died 7 years ago and only ever told me that she was a WREN and a secretary in the Japanese section. Like the women in the book, she did work that was not discussed; I know now that she broke non enigma codes in many languages.
But there is still so little information that reading this has really helped me to picture the life she led during her time at Bletchley Park and to remind me of how different the lives of these young women were to the lives of the generations after them. Wow it is quite a read Interesting as most true reads are, I found myself getting more and more involved with not just the work that was being done, but with the 'girls' themselves.
I didn't realize it was quite such a long read, yet I was rather sorry when it was the end. I just say however that the photos of everyone in the closing pages was terribly welcome, in that I rather wished I had known how they looked much earlier on.
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I was born in December so I have no idea of what went on during the war. I recommend this as a well written and researched work. Tessa Dunlop published this work quickly partly to time in with the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and partly so that the 15 over 90 year old Bletchley Park old-hands might see something about their young lives which for long had been left unsaid. It should not therefore be considered as the official history or the final finished product, merely providing extra impressions and slight varied conclusions from previously uncontacted veterans.
That was thought whether from a uneducated builder to an intelligence officer. The 40th anniversary of the D Day landings, in June , and the growing use of computers coincided with a greater interest of a new generation of educated females eager to learn what granny did and knew in the war. Alan Hodges controversial biography of the genius Alan Turing , followed by film productions, such as Enigma and The Imitation Game , and the large funds available from the Lottery to refurbish a museum at Bletchley has furthered the growth of tourism and demand for more details.
The passage of time, and the shredding of paper and dismantling of equipment in , however, has encouraged myths and excitement about life, work and the people at that secret rural place, in Buckinghamshire, close to London, now virtually part of the new town of Milton Keynes. The War indeed provided certain opportunities for social interaction, but there were few permanent relationships that evolved and survived thereafter to matrimony. The films, however, to entertain and simplify have portrayed an ambiguous, and distorted female role.
It was neither the tea lady types Kate Winslett of Enigma one up from Mrs Mopp , nor were they aware as Joan Clarke Keira Knightley in The Imitation Game what their daily accomplishments were doing in the particular campaigns. Some did not even know that they had been involved in code-breaking. Except for one, Lady Jean Graham of the Earls of Montrose, who felt stultified and imprisoned, few except those who worked in the Italian section, however, could transfer to another.
Lady Jean not only disproved that norm; by the persons she and her family were acquainted with she alone could find the key to the door out before VE Day. In contrast, two others: age and appearance helped indexer Pamela Gibson and Muriel Bogush gained promotions. She did make a confession, a sign of remorse on the castration and suicide of the young Turing in , that if she could turn the clock back she or her father in the House of Lords would have approached Churchill to offer a gift of the nation to the brilliant saviour of the country in wartime with a home in Canada where the laws then against homosexuals were less severe.
Rozanne Medhurst goes on, Bletchley was much more avant-garde and tolerant on social norms, and a young girl like herself could not fail to pick up feelings amid the whispers. War was an emergency and not the norm, so could that same spirit of acceptance persist among people less experienced in the know outside Bletchley?
VE Day was the start of the running down of work at Bletchley. It could have been noticed with amount of work dropping as Germany was encircled.
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They were too involved in the small details. By eleven of the 15 veterans were married with a tribe of three, four or five children at their waist. That was the generation as the author notes which was to repopulate, with the men again called to make the decisions. Fortunately, neither the ice nor she had melted.
The aged girls are still not embittered if the recognition came late for them. Metacritic Reviews. Photo Gallery. Trailers and Videos. Crazy Credits. Alternate Versions. Rate This.
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Director: Morten Tyldum. Writers: Graham Moore , Andrew Hodges book. Added to Watchlist. From metacritic. Emmys Class of First-Time Nominees. Oscar Spotlight: Best Screenplay. Save for Later. Intelligent - Tense movies. Favoritos de sempre. Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Won 1 Oscar. Edit Cast Cast overview, first billed only: Benedict Cumberbatch Alan Turing Keira Knightley Joan Clarke Matthew Goode Hugh Alexander Rory Kinnear Detective Robert Nock Allen Leech John Cairncross Matthew Beard Peter Hilton Charles Dance Commander Denniston Mark Strong Stewart Menzies James Northcote Jack Good Tom Goodman-Hill Superintendent Smith Ilan Goodman Keith Furman Jack Tarlton Charles Richards Alex Lawther Young Alan Turing Jack Bannon Edit Storyline Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.
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