Canada Ping!
Posted on 11/11/2014 2:14:44 PM PST by Squawk 8888
The bright teenager from Beckingham, Kent — known then as Dorothy Winifred Shiers — had studied accounting in high school and turned her proficiency with numbers into a job with a London company.
But with her nation at war, she heeded the call and joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service, or Wrens as they were known. At the end of her basic training, she was required to sign the Official Secrets Act, its inherent solemnity backed by the promise of a £2,000 fine and two years in prison for contravention at any time prior to 1975.
Lincoln was an Enigma codebreaker, one of hundreds of young women stationed at the Government Code and Cipher School in Bletchley Park. They worked around the clock in four watches, feeding information into Colossus, the world’s first programmable super computer, which was cracking thousands of encrypted messages sent by German forces using the so-called Enigma machines.
Dressed in identical black skirts, white shirts, navy blazers and ribboned tams, the Wrens were forced to tell skeptical friends and relatives that they were doing clerical work at all hours.
“I couldn’t tell anybody [the truth],” said Lincoln, who was part of D watch. “My dad, he wondered about it. But he never found out. They said, ‘For goodness sake don’t tell fathers who were serving, or boyfriends, because if they were shot down and tortured it would be very hard not to give information.’
“My dad died before I could tell him,” said the 89-year-old Lincoln, who has lived in Edmonton for several decades now.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
Canada Ping!
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In the US, PBS is currently running a series in our market called The Bletchley Circle.
The fictional story is based on the lives of 4 women code breakers and is set in the ‘50s, long after the war is over but restrictions are still in place. The women use their skills to solve crimes for Scotland Yard, but they cannot tell the men they are working for where they get their “hunches”. It’s very well done, and I watch it every week.
Many {{HUGS}} Wren!!!
The only Edmonton I ever heard of is in Alberta, Canada, but I see this one is in the London area. I learn something new every day.
Crossing over ... Destiny is the Rising Sun ... We see ‘em.
They call US Rebel Souls ... No Claim to Fame!!! Get your Bad Company On!!!
I wonder if she is a Wayne Gretzky/Oilers fan too?
Mom did always say ... Listen closely and take your time.
yea, I know you can!
there is a movie coming out (or is here?) about the man and woman who first broke the enigma code. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightly.
So will they speak Polish or will they speak with a Polish accent?
Dunno. But I just went to look up title and it is called “The Imitation Game”
She’s living in Edmonton, Alberta. She moved to Canada with her RCAF husband after the war.
She’s there and still walking the talk ... Sunshine ... bring the Moonlight.
Eleven Days out and that was the last one .... May God hold the next eleven days out.
I had a chance to buy an Enigma machine a few decades back but passed it up as too esoteric. Price was several hundred dollars if I recall correctly. Would have made a cool bookshelf knick-knack.
It’s an interesting show, but extremely anti-male. Every male in the series is a SOB, every woman a saint. That proved very irritating after a few episodes.
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It's a little older than Canada...:^) Most of the earlier settlers just copied names from back home and even now, I bet a lot of the UK doesn't know there is a Boston in Lincolnshire.
From wiki -
Edmonton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is recorded as Adelmetone- 'a farmstead or estate of a man called Ēadhelm' from an Old English personal name and tūn.
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