Kate: My pride in Granny Middleton, the Bletchley belle who foiled Hitler
... and why we MUST protect the mental health of her fellow code crackers today
FOR decades her vital wartime work as one of the ‘Bletchley Girls’ was no more than a family secret. But now the role of Valerie Glassborow at the Bletchley Park code-breaking station has been given its proper recognition – by her granddaughter, the Duchess of Cambridge.
The Duchess has paid tribute to her grandmother, one of many young women who worked around the clock at Bletchley during the Second World War to intercept enemy signals so they could be decrypted.
In a new book, the Duchess said she was ‘immensely proud’ of her grandmother, who worked alongside her twin Mary. Miss Glassborow later married pilot Peter Middleton, but remained discreet about her wartime exploits, even within her family.
Recently released official documents show that Miss Glassborow worked with her twin in
‘They hardly ever talked about their war service’
Hut 6, which was renamed Hut 16 as the operation at the Buckinghamshire mansion expanded, helping the code-breakers who unlocked the secrets of the German Enigma machine.
The achievements of scientist Alan Turing – believed by some to have shortened the war by up to two years – remained little known until relatively recently. Over the past few years, however, they have been celebrated in movies such The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
Now the Duchess has added her admiration for the efforts of her grandmother and her colleagues – and acknowledged the mental strain such workers then and today are under.
In the book, she writes: ‘She and her twin sister, Mary, served with thousands of other young women as part of the great Allied effort to break enemy codes.
‘They hardly ever talked about their wartime service, but we now know just how important the men and women of Bletchley Park were, as they tackled some of the hardest problems facing the country.’
Kate said similar stresses were now faced by her grandmother’s successors, the experts who work at spy centre GCHQ. Many of the gifted staff are on the autistic spectrum and others face strain from being unable to discuss their work. She writes in the book: ‘Like their Bletchley predecessors, they [GCHQ] have become well known for valuing and understanding the importance of mental wellbeing. ‘This is so important when dealing with such discretion and the pressure which comes with this.’
Little is known about the exact roles of Valerie and her sister but it is known they were both employed as Foreign Office civilians in a section which managed the interception of enemy signals.
The Duchess visited Bletchley two years ago following an £8million restoration programme and met one of her late grandmother’s former colleagues, Lady Marion Body. The new book, The GCHQ Puzzle Book, has been created by the intelligence agency to challenge aspiring codebreakers. Proceeds will go the Heads Together mental health campaign, a partnership between the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry and a number of charities.
The Duchess says: ‘I hope it will not only amuse readers, but help to promote an open discussion of mental health problems.’