The Wychwood December/January 2009/10 Vol30No5

Special Feature Bletchley Girl and Enigma: A Citation Miss Pauline Elliott, could sing madrigals, musician and Latin which she enjoyed scholar, has been and played the given a medal and Sorceress in a citation by Gordon production of Brown for her work Purcell’s Dido and at Aeneas . Sometimes during the Second she went on her bike World War - but she to Milton Keynes. claims it is all a Pauline became mistake! Her sister friendly with the was an brilliant accomplished , , and Hugh Alexander and was actively recruited to work at Shaun Wylie. Bletchley, however, her sister had just had a baby, and her husband was away, Code Broken but Lives Still Lost so Pauline went to Bletchley in her Alexander was Turing’s successor as sister’s place! head of ; Pauline adds that “only Pauline says she was good at languages, Turing made a bigger contribution to the and had excellent French and German, so success of Hut 8 than Wylie.” Pauline those were useful tools for her work with remained friendly with Hugh Alexander Naval Intelligence and she was able to after the war, and looked after him to his help with the wording of intercepted dying day. She and her sister were both messages. However, she modestly claims students at the where she was not the mathematical brain they Shaun Wylie spotted Pauline’s sister’s really wanted to help break mathematical talents. the German Enigma code with his One of the high points in Pauline’s years machine. at Bletchley was the time when Winston Churchill, accompanied by several A Very Proper Gentleman Admirals, came to Bletchley specifically She characterises Turing, as a ‘very to apologise to the people working there proper gentleman’, with impeccable for the fact that although the code had manners and grooming who did not been broken, British ships were still deserve the treatment he received later being sunk. Pauline says the women for his homosexual leanings. “I was working there were very angry that ignorant of homosexuality then, and just innocent men’s lives were not being thought he was strange and very brilliant. saved as a result of their work. Churchill He intimidated me conversationally, explained in 1941 that it was still because he didn’t seem to want to talk necessary to keep the Germans from about mundane things.” knowing their code was broken. Life at Bletchley was entertaining; she Peggy Walmsley

21