I recently made my first visit to Bletchley Park, the code-breaking centre for Britain in WWII. It’s a most interesting place, and one can spend hours there learning about the top-secret work that went on. I had watched the excellent film The Imitation Game about Alan Turing, and enjoyed the TV series The Bletchley Girls. People with brilliant minds, people who were good at solving puzzles or gifted with languages were recruited to work there, and they managed to crack the Enigma code, which helped shorten the war and saved thousands of lives.
As always, I was on the look-out for literary connections. I was astonished to learn that J.R.R. Tolkien was keen to become a cryptanalyst and went through part of the selection process, but in the end, he was not accepted at Bletchley. There was a small panel of information about him there. I wonder how different his life and writing career might have been had he been involved in cryptography there?
Then I spotted a name that rang a bell – Mavis Batey. In my collection of Jane Austen books at home, I had Jane Austen and the English Landscape by Mavis Batey. A quick check on Google told me it was the same person. Mavis Batey (1921 – 2013) was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley.
Although she was only 19, Mavis had studied German and had good linguistic skills. She was soon recruited at Bletchley and worked on messages from the Italian Navy. In 1942, she married Keith Batey, a fellow cryptographer. She played a key role in enabling the British to win several naval battles. She later wrote a biography of her boss at Bletchley, Dilly, The Man Who Broke Enigmas.
Mavis went on to work in garden history and conservation and served as President of the Garden History Society. Today a Mavis Batey Essay Prize is offered in her name to students of garden design and history. Mavis was awarded an MBE for her code-breaking services and for her contribution to garden history. She wrote about poet Alexander Pope and landscape, and her book about Jane Austen and how she was influenced by the English countryside and the landscape design movement of her era was published in 1996. The book discusses the real and fictional settings of Jane Austen’s novels, looks at the competing design movements of romanticism and classicism, and gives information about the important landscape designers and artists of the day. Knowing more about Mavis’s personal history has inspired me to reread it.
Here are some of the photos I took, click on one to open the album.
I can’t find any other Bletchley codebreakers who went on to have distinguished literary careers. Alan Turing wrote many papers and articles about computing and mathematics, but he would never have thought of himself as an ‘author’. Perhaps there were no other Bletchley codebreakers who went on to publish books as Mavis did? If you know of any, please let me know.
I can really recommend a visit to Bletchley Park, but spotting Mavis Batey’s name (and seeing a copy of Pride and Prejudice in the Bletchley library – surely a novel she turned to for some light relief) were highlights for me. One really can find Jane Austen almost anywhere!
Have you visited Bletchley Park? Please let me know your thoughts in a comment.
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Brett Johnson
Thanks for this fascinating report on your visit to BP, Susannah. It was high on the list of my partner for his first visit to England last year. Easy day trip by train from Euston. I too was fascinated to see what was in the library, and like you, took many photos when I found the Jane Austen volumes and others eg a book by G B Stern, whose co-written books on JA you included in your top 20 JA books a couple of years ago. The various big labels in the library filled in so much – just as you say – how Tolkien didn’t join up, how Alan Turing was just one on a longish list of potential recruits. We took the high tea option, sitting in the great bow window in the old house, before heading back to London. The website recommends something like three hours there, and they’re right. It was much more extensive than I imagined. Highly recommended. Loved the way the gilt stamped J M Dent volume of Sense and Sensibility stood alongside De Quincey and Browning in the same series / format.
Susannah Fullerton
Isn’t it an interesting place! However, after my visit, I did start to wonder about the books in the library. The place was cleared out after the war, as if nothing had ever happened there, so I assume that the books in the library were dispersed too. Did they then decide to try adn replace exactly what was there, and how did they do that? Did people who worked there let the ‘museum’ know what books they read while there? or did they just fill the library with books that were either classic or popular in that era? I should have asked. However, surely Jane Austen and Dickens would have been amongst the books!
Margaret Horton
We were lucky enough to visit BP in July 2019 during a 1940’s weekend – visitors were dressed in 1940’s clothes, lots of people in military uniforms of the time, and special displays. A wonderful experience an and appreciation of the hard conditions in those war days. (and I shall be attending one of your Jane Austin talks shortly – especially enjoyed a series on authors and their cities you gave at the NSW Art Gallery some years ago now)
Susannah Fullerton
Your Bletchley experience sounds wonderful. What fun to have everyone in costume.
Thanks for your kind words about my talks and I’ll see you soon for the Jane Austen one.
narelle hillsdon
It was through the wonderful writer Penelope Fitzgerald that I discovered Mavis Batey and bought her book ‘Jane Austen and the English Landscape’. She also wrote a delightful book
‘Alice’s Adventures in Oxford’ which I can highly recommend.
Susannah Fullerton
I will see if I can find a copy of Mavis Batey’ book about Alice. I also love Penelope Fitzgerald’s books.
Reba
I have been interested in Bletchley Park since first learning of it years ago. It also amaze me that while about 2/3rds of the code breakers were women, it was a man who first talked about Bletchley Park to the outside world!
Marcia H.
How lovely to find an Austen connection at Bletchley Park! We visited Bletchley Park in 2015, the year after The Imitation Game came out! They had a film exhibit on at the same time, with costumes and props from the movie. We also saw a demonstration of the Turing Bombe rebuild project. It was all very inspiring!
Susannah Fullerton
It is such an interesting place to visit. When we got home, we found ‘The Imitation Game’ on netflix and watched it agian. It wasn’t actually filmed at Bletchley but a building that looked very similar. It must have been lovely to see the costumes from it.
Mary Dwyer
I have always been intrigued by Bletchley Park, and glad you were able to visit it.
Have you read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn – fiction based on fact set in BP? Mary Dwyer