My mother, Pauline Gill, who has died aged 97, was one of the last surviving “Bletchley Girls” – young women who operated the machines that broke the German Enigma codes and helped shorten the second world war.
Operators such as Pauline would start up the machines, wait until the drums on them had stopped revolving, and note the position of a lever at the side of the machine and those of three master drums that had all stopped at letters. These letters would be written down and sent for checking.
Pauline never divulged any details of her wartime work until Frederick Winterbotham’s book about Bletchley, The Ultra Secret, was published in 1974, and my father, David, read it. Since then the role of Bletchley Park has become public knowledge and she regularly attended veterans’ reunions.
Pauline was born in Carshalton, Surrey, the youngest of the nine children of Sydney Hodgkinson, who worked on the Stock Exchange, and Muriel (nee Naylor), a housewife. She was a pupil at Wallington county grammar school when, at 17, she signed up with the Women’s Royal Naval Service, saying that she chose the WRNS because she liked the uniform.
After basic training she was told she might be suitable for something called “P5”, but had to accept the job on trust and sign the Official Secrets Act before starting. Once she had done so, she was transferred to HMS Pembroke in Eastcote, Middlesex (now in the London borough of Hillingdon), an outstation of Bletchley Park where information was sent on for decoding.
Pauline worked eight-hour shifts across various times of the day, including through the night, and was provided with food and accommodation plus 10 shillings (50p) a week in wages. It was not exciting or glamorous work but it saved thousands of lives and by some estimates helped shorten the war by two years.
After demobilisation in 1946 she trained as a physiotherapist at Guy’s hospital in London, where she worked for a time before in 1950 she married David Gill, whom she had known since they were teenagers in Carshalton. They had six children between 1951 and 1965, and Pauline spent most of that time raising the family. Later on she became a foster carer for newborn babies, hosted Chinese teachers on an exchange scheme and was a part-time school dinner lady.
She enjoyed travelling after my father retired, going on a round-the-world trip and visiting China to see some of the teachers she had met. She was active in her local church, did hospital visiting and volunteered at a senior citizens’ lunch club into her 90s. She was also a demon Scrabble player.
As a gift for her 90th birthday, her family arranged for a brick to be placed in her name in the Codebreakers’ Wall at Bletchley Park, which commemorates those who contributed to its triumphs.
David died in 2006. She is survived by her children, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
