162 | 15 THE wORlD’S fIRST COmPUTER OPERATORS
Perhaps this was a test: some people left at this stage. Those of us who remained were kitted
out with temporary garb and then, eventually, with uniforms (Fig. 15.1). We were each given a
service number. This one never forgets—it seems to be engraved on the soul.
We did hours of squad drill to smarten us up, and were lectured on the Senior Service and
its history since the time of Samuel Pepys. There were interviews to find out which category
we would like to go into: I cannot remember what I said. We found out later that this was all a
terrific blind—they had already decided where we were going. Just before we left Tullichewan
we were told we were being posted to a station in the country 50 miles from London. ‘Very
depressing’, we thought.
We travelled down on the night train from Glasgow. It was absolutely packed with service
personnel and we arrived at Bletchley completely exhausted. From the station we were taken
by transport to Bletchley Park, only a few minutes away. There was a high security fence. The
transport stopped at an entrance manned by guards, and we were taken a few at a time into a
concrete building where we were issued with our security passes. Without our pass we would be
unable to enter the compound, and we were told to protect it with our lives.
Before us was a large Victorian house with a sward of grass in front of it. We learned that it
was called the Mansion. A Wren officer escorted us into a low building adjacent to the Mansion,
where she gave us a very intimidating lecture about the extreme secrecy of Bletchley Park and
every aspect of the work being done there. We were never to divulge any information about our
work or about the place where we worked, on penalty of imprisonment or worse. We were never
to discuss our work when ‘outside’, not even with those with whom we worked. We were not
to ask anyone outside our own unit what they did. We were not to keep diaries. Our category,
we were told, was PV Special Duties X: ‘PV’ stood for ‘Pembroke V’ (pronounced ‘Pembroke
figure 15.1 Eleanor Ireland.
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