Station X

Did you watch The Bletchley Circle recently? I did – with great anticipation. Especially when it appeared that the chief protagonist had been recruited to Station X at BP from her job as a clerk in the Foreign Office. That is exactly what happened to MY MUM!

Unfortunately that is about the sum total of my knowledge of my mum’s wartime experience. She would not speak about it. At all. Ever. Not even to Dad.

But I did find this series a little irritating.

For a start 1952 was the year the King died. We all know that – cos we have just celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. But what was said about the King’s Funeral, or the Coronation? Many things were still on ration – but they only had a brief allusion to that at the beginning of Episode One [and the family ate a HUGE piece of meat later on]

They had a dimmer switch in their dining room. Susan appeared to be knitting with bamboo needles [surely they are MUCH newer?] In fact I kept noticing anachronistic details which jarred with me. It rather spoiled the plot. I suppose I am being too picky – but people would be shouting from the rooftops if there were errors in the historical accuracies of Downton, or Parade’s End.

And then the last episode was so contrived, the behaviour of the four women seemed rather silly. If they were so intelligent that they were recruited to decode the Grand German War Schemes, would they really act in such ludicrous ways?

I do hope they don’t decide to make a follow-up series! Rant over.