Secret Life of Bletchley Park - McKay Sinclair [48]
It was a perfect illustration of how, at every conceivable level, the work at Bletchley was kept absolutely secret. Just a couple of days later, Commander Bradshaw sent a reply:
I am sorry to hear of Miss Moloney’s indisposition. There is in the ordinary way nothing that we know of in the work that she does that is in any way likely to be prejudicial to her health. The same work is done by a large number of other girls, none of whom so far as we know have suffered in any way. The hours are not abnormally long and except that a good deal of standing is involved, it is not physically exhausting.
Bradshaw went on to add, with pointed understatement:
… there is nothing peculiar in her silence. That is perfectly correct in her behaviour – in fact it is highly commendable. I think I have only to point this out to you to prevent you pressing her further on the subject. The sick return from the Section in which she works is exactly the same as all other Sections, where the work varies considerably, and the staff varies in age …
I think, therefore, that you will have to look elsewhere … to account for her indisposition unless it be that Miss Moloney finds the work a mental strain and worry. She is perfectly at liberty to say so if she does …5
It scarcely needs to be added that, even without the background of the war, this was not an era in which concerns about workplace health were given a sympathetic hearing or researched in any depth. From shipbuilding yards, to deep coal mines, to deafening factories filled with potentially lethal machinery, the discomforts of manual occupations were simply part of the burden that working men and women were expected to accept in return for their wages. Indeed, in industrial terms, there is something about the image of the bombes, ticking and clicking and spraying oil in unison, that puts one in mind of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis – the image of small people tending to vast, inexorably functioning, demanding machines.
Occasionally, the bombes could be downright dangerous. According to one account from a technician: ‘A Wren operator was prettying herself using a metal mirror which slid across two large electrical terminals. There was a bright flash, the mirror evaporated, and her lipstick shot across her throat. I was working nearby. The scream made me look up. I thought she had cut her throat!’6
For others, though, like Jean Valentine – a young Wren who later went on to break Japanese codes in Ceylon – the thing was simply to take a deep breath and get on with it. ‘I was sent to Adstock, living in a village called Steeple Claydon, and started working on the bombe. We worked shifts, or “watches” as they were called; eight in the morning till four in the afternoon for one week; four in the afternoon till midnight the following week; and then midnight till eight on the third week. Then we went off duty at eight in the morning and were back on at four till midnight, so we did sixteen hours that last day. Once you had learned how to [work the bombe], it was OK. It wasn’t all that complicated.’
Jean Valentine says that – speaking for herself – she saw few signs that working on these great machines was more stressful than any other part of the war effort. ‘Yes, there was a call for accuracy, but that was discipline. You disciplined yourself to do it because you were being disciplined. There was nothing serious done to us but it was the expectations on us as youngsters.
‘When you’re younger, your fingers are very flexible, you can do things much more quickly. And the brain works quicker.’
On top of this, many have testified to the unendurable noise of the bombe machines working hour after hour. Again, Jean Valentine remembers slightly differently: ‘I don’t like noise. But to me, it was like a lot of knitting machines working – a kind of tickety-clickety