The Road to Station X: From Debutante Ball to Fighter-Plane Factory to Bletchley Park, a Memoir of One Woman’s Journey Through World War Two (Memoirs from World War Two) by Sarah Baring

Exceptional story about a former socialite’s role in WWII in Britain

This is the first book I’ve read in two years where I’ve felt so strongly that it should be turned into a TV series. I’m surprised it hasn’t been snapped up already.

When World War II broke out, Sarah Baring left behind (in the main) her role as an English socialite and worked in an aircraft factory drilling holes in metal sheeting before taking a job at the super-secret Bletchley Park.

Bletchley Park was the primary centre for code-breaking during World War notably the German Enigma ciphers and where Alan Turing worked.

The work conducted at Bletchley Park was so secret, that it was only thirty years later it was revealed what actually went on there.

Sarah Baring worked in the Ultra intelligence section responsible for translating de-coded messages; it was this intelligence that was deemed to have shortened the war by two to four years.

This book is highly engaging, well written and descriptive.

Several times, her feelings are revealed such as when describing how some secrets remained hidden for fifty years yet ‘It is an example for today to certain people who seem incapable of keeping their mouths shut‘.

It was disappointing the book stopped abruptly and there wasn’t an author’s biography.

I paid for this book and read it on a Kindle.