Majken Zein Sørensen
- Mar 19, 2020
- 5 min read

The Bletchley Circle

Updated: Jul 27, 2020

TV-SERIES. Apart from being highly entertaining, “The Bletchley Circle” tv-series is also a great way to shine a light on a group of women in history who, for a long time, have been invisible: The women who worked at Bletchley Park, the main centre of Allied code-breaking during WWII.

A spy or two - and a handful of riddles

Like tons of other people in this world I, too, like to watch - or read - a good crime story - preferably the ones that involves a spy or two, some codebreaking and a handful of riddles. And if it takes place in historical settings well…then it doesn’t get much better, right?

A while back I came across the tv-series “The Bletchley Circle”, a series which not only ticks the ‘cryptogram’ and ‘conundrum’-boxes, but also it is inspired by real historical happenings that took place back in the 1940s and 50s, and…oh well, I just had to mention it here on my blog.

Now, before I continue with the story itself, I’ll make a short stopover to fill you in on some ‘Bletchley Basics’.

14 million lives were saved

So, Bletchley - or Bletchley Park as it’s called - is the name of an estate placed in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, England…c. 1 1/2 hours drive by car from London in north-west direction.

During World War II the Bletchley Park became the main centre of Allied code-breaking. One of the most well known code-breakers was - probably - Mr Alan Mathison Turing, an English mathematician and computer scientist who worked at this very place. Turing played an important role in cracking coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the German army in many crucial engagements.

Actually some say that the effects of the code breaking effort made by Turing and his colleagues shortened the war by more than 2 years - and saved over 14 million lives.

So what happened here was indeed truly amazing! However, what we also need to remember is that Turing and his close colleagues were not carrying out this important work on their own. Actually more than 10.000 people were involved in the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park - and no less than 75% of this workforce were women.

Some of them worked as administrators, card index compilers and couriers delivering messages to code-breaking specialists. But eventually the women proved to their male superiors that they were fully capable of operating the cryptanalysis machines all by themselves. And so they started cracking ciphers on their own.

Code breakers and housewives

Four of these clever Bletchley-women we meet in the fictional “The Bletchley Circle” tv-series - Susan, Millie, Lucy and Jean. When we dump into the lives of these four characters, it is 7 years since the war ended. The year is 1952, and all of them have returned to their everyday lives in London. Susan is married and has two children, Millie has travelled the world and now lives her life as a single woman, working at a café. Lucy is married to a simpleminded - and unfortunately also violent - man and Jean spends her time at her job at a library and has no close family to look after.

Their - now - v e r y ordinary lives, where they fill the roles of a housewife, take care of the household and obey their husbands - or, in Millie’s and Jean’s situations, work in low income, low prestigious jobs - are clearly miles and miles away from the time they experienced at Bletchley Park.

In episode one this rather sad contrast between then and now is shown. We meet the women shortly while they are still working at Bletchley, and the main character, Susan, has just cracked an important code. As she goes to bed she begs not to ever lead an ordinary life, and Millie assures her that such a thing will never happen. However, nine years later we find Susan in the living room of her present home, sitting in a chair knitting - while looking extremely bored.

Fortunately this dull situation is about to change. Susan hears about a series of murders that have occurred in the London area, and inspired by her codebreaking past at Bletchley she starts recognising patterns connecting the killings. She even takes it one step further and tells the police about her findings and theories, but they are not convinced.

Refusing to give up she contacts the three other women, and soon they are not only involved in codebreaking and other theoretical desk work, but also they throw themselves into actual field work…which turns out to be a rather dangerous affair.

A tribute to the women at Bletchley Park

“The Bletchley Circle” is a highly entertaining and really well made fictional telling leaning towards the ‘feel good’ genre. It has great actors, like Anna Maxwell Martin, Sophie Rundle, Rachael Stirling and Julie Graham in the leading roles, and clearly a lot of work has been put into showing genuine historical details like 1940/50s clothes, vehicles, architecture, food - and behaviour.

But besides being of high quality, the series also plays an important role in shining a light on a group of women in history who, for a long time, have been more or less invisible: The women who worked at Bletchley Park. Both the ones who held subordinate positions as well as the ones who were among the top of their group. Like Pamela Rose (née Gibson), for instance, who started working at the “humdrum roles” and ended becoming Head of Section.

About 7.500 women worked at Bletchley Park during WWII and fortunately more and more historians, journalists, bloggers, filmmakers etc are digging into their stories. I’ve listed a few sources below if you feel like doing some digging yourself, but, hey! Why not go and watch the series first :-)

F U N F A C T S

🤐 The people working at Bletchley Park were not allowed to tell anyone about their great effort during the war, not even their closest relatives. Being part of the Bletchley Park team they had sworn an oath of secrecy, an oath they were bound by until c. 30 years (30 years!) after WWII. If they broke the oath they would go to prison - or perhaps even be executed.

🎧 In the History Extra Podcast: “The Women of Bletchley Park”, historian Tessa Dunlop shares the stories of women she interviewed for her book “The Bletchley Girls”. All of them worked at Bletchley Park during WWII. Find it here

🏰 Fancy a visit to Bletchley Park?

⚙️ Watch this video where Jean Valentine, one of the brave women who used to operate the code-breaking machine the ‘Bombe’, tells about her job at Bletchley Park👇

📽 And one last stop: “The Bletchley Circle”-trailer 🎬🍿

Take good care! And see you next time,

Majken xx

P.S. If you like this blog post, please feel free to share it on your favourite social media, thank you 💛 See links for sharing below 🔗👇

P.P.S. I would love to hear from you! Comments on this blog post, recommendations in the historical non-fiction department, thoughts about the strange world we live in these days 🙃 (in a moment this will all be part of our common history books) ...anything you like to share. Please send me a message ➡️ C L I C K H E R E