Betty webb MBE, 98 Intelligence Corps
speaking German despite living in rural Shropshire, was sent to London for an interview with an Intelligence Corps officer.
“He told me, ‘Get yourself to Bletchley Park’,” she recalls.
“I’d never heard of it. On arrival we were told we’d be billeted in houses round about, and the following morning we were bussed in and given the Official
Secrets Act to read. We were told to read it and swear not to divulge anything until 1975.
“Of course it was quite a shock, but I had no choice but to abide by the rules. It was so strict I couldn’t even tell my parents where I was, and they died before I was at liberty to tell them.” Betty, whose husband Alfred died in the 1970s, remained at Bletchley Park until the end of the war in Europe. She says: “I was posted to America then.
“I was sent there because I’d been paraphrasing decoded Japanese signals, and this was work that carried on at the Pentagon.
“I worked there from June until September 1945, and the place was absolutely enormous. I believe there were around 32,000 people who worked there, mostly American, and it was all very secretive.
“I was only allowed into the office where I worked.” Once the war ended, Betty made her way back to Blighty. “We just had to pack up, tidy up, and that was the end of it,” she says. “It took me a very long time before I got home. I came back on what had been a troop ship during the war. It took four or five days to get from New York to Southampton and it was very rough and unpleasant.”
In 1946 Betty was able to reunite with mother Charlotte and father Lesley Vine-Stephens, who had served in India during the First World War. Betty later became a permanent staff officer for the Cheshire Battalion of the Territorial Army and was the Birmingham recruiting officer from 1966–9.
She went on to work with the Birmingham Law Society and served on her local parish council in Wythall, Worcs, for 32 years.
She says revisiting her memories for the book has been a “marvellous” experience.