In this special guest blog, Rhian reveals her close to home inspiration for the story…
My great-aunt Audrey revealed her career as a code-breaker one Sunday lunchtime, in a pub in Wales, when a family member made an incorrect statement about Bletchley Park. Before this, if asked about her war work, Audrey would have replied, just as she’d been trained to do, “Admin. Nothing exciting.” When Audrey was queried about her seemingly impossible knowledge about somewhere in England (of all places!) called Bletchley Park, she stood up and announced to her family, and the whole pub, that she had been “a stripper for the Japanese!” Silence fell as my shocked family, and a room full of strangers, processed this new and unexpected information, delivered with gusto! Audrey arrived at Bletchley Park as a seventeen year old girl, signed the Official Secrets Act, and was eventually trained to strip Japanese Naval codes, translating vital intelligence, which, along with the other groundbreaking work taking place at the park, helped bring about the end of the war.
This story is now legend in our family, and I thoroughly enjoy sharing it with the Bletchley Park Mystery series readers as I visit schools, libraries, and festivals across the country.
As if this bombshell wasn’t enough, one Christmas, Audrey’s daughter, Pat and Audrey’s granddaughter, Kate, thought they’d hit the jackpot when they bought a beautiful hamper from Fortnum and Mason, in London, for Audrey. As Audrey opened it, she casually mentioned how much she loved shopping at Fortnum’s on her lunchbreak during the war. The family were baffled; as far as they knew, Audrey had never lived or worked in London. She had lived and worked her whole life in Wales, apart from her time at Bletchley Park. Audrey went on to explain that she worked on nearby Berkeley Street. After conducting research, I discovered this was where Alaistair Denniston, previously head of Bletchley Park, and his team, working across seven floors of hidden offices, dealt with the diplomatic traffic of Germany, Italy, Japan, and many neutral countries! Think of the tailor shop scene in the film, Kingsman, when the high end clothing establishment is revealed as a cover for the secret agents and replace this with a women’s boutique and you’ll get a closer idea about what Audrey got up to in London! Audrey carried on chatting about popping into Fortnum and Mason’s sumptuous food hall, and the questions came thick and fast, but having been terrified into keeping her secret war work, well…secret, Audrey clammed up again.
There is still so much about Audrey’s exciting and clandestine war work that we’ll never be able to uncover as she died in 2018 at the grand age of 93. But Audrey left us with enough breadcrumbs. So I followed her trail, conducting thorough and in-depth research, as well as letting my imagination roam far and wide, exploring the gaps, silences, and the whispers, to see where her story would take me. Wink Murder, the third book in the Bletchley Park Mystery series, is closely inspired by Audrey’s time at Bletchley Park, and a secret language college in Bedford, where she learned Japanese, as well as her undercover work for the Secret Intelligence Service MI6, in London. What an amazing life she and the other members of staff at Bletchley Park led, contributing to the end of the war, providing an invaluable service for their country, one which we their families and ancestors can never thank them enough for.