CHAPTER 15

We were the world’s first

computer operators

eleanor ireland

I

n 1944 I worked at Bletchley Park and lived at nearby Woburn Abbey. My job was to assist

the codebreakers by operating one of the Colossus machines. In this chapter I describe

how this came to be and what it was like to live and work at Bletchley Park during the last

months of the war.

In 1944 I was working in London, in a philatelist’s business. One of my friends joined the

Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) as a motor transport driver, and I decided to join too. In

great trepidation I went to Queen Anne’s Gate and volunteered. I was interviewed immediately

and very soon was called to a medical. Not long after, I received a letter telling me to report on

2 August 1944 to a WRNS establishment at Tullichewan Castle near Glasgow. I found out much

later that it would have been more usual to report to Mill Hill in London, but there had been a

spate of bombing and the powers that be did not wish to take any chances with the new intake,

so they sent us up to Scotland.

Strangely enough, in the week before I was due to set off on this adventure I met a school

friend who was also joining the WRNS and had been asked to report to Tullichewan on the

same day. I was pleased to discover that I had a companion to go with. As it turned out, we were

to stay together until we were demobbed at the end of December 1946.

We travelled to Glasgow and then out to a small station on the edge of Loch Lomond, where

we were picked up and taken to Tullichewan WRNS reception camp, a requisitioned castle

standing in a large hillside estate. At the bottom of the hill was the Regulating Office, together

with a large number of Nissen huts—the sleeping quarters, a mess, the stores hut, and so forth.

Opposite the huts was an enormous parade ground, while at the top of the hill was the castle,

used by the officers, and another parade ground with the naval flag.

Every day a bell sounded at 5 a.m. to get us up, after which we were required to do various

menial tasks, such as cleaning out the huts, potato peeling, and blancoing the steps of the castle.