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  • The Bletchley Girls

  • War, Secrecy, Love and Loss: The Women of Bletchley Park Tell Their Story
  • By: Tessa Dunlop
  • Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
  • Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (43 ratings)

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The Bletchley Girls

By: Tessa Dunlop
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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Summary

Historian and broadcaster Tessa Dunlop tells the story of the women of Bletchley Park through exclusive and unprecedented access to the women themselves. The Bletchley Girls weaves together the lives of 15 women who were all selected to work in Britain's most secret organisation - Bletchley Park.

It is their story, told in their voices; Tessa met and talked to 15 veterans, often visiting them several times. Firm friendships were made as their epic journey unfolded on paper. The scale of female involvement in Britain during the Second World War wasn't matched in any other country.

From eight million working women, just over 7,000 were handpicked to work at Bletchley Park and its outstations. There had always been girls at the park, but soon they outnumbered the men three to one. A refugee from Belgium, a Scottish debutante, a Jewish 14-year-old and a factory worker from Northamptonshire - the Bletchley Girls confound stereotypes. But they all have one common bond: the war and their highly confidential part in it.

In the middle of the night, hunched over meaningless pieces of paper, tending mind-blowing machines, sitting listening for hours on end, theirs was invariably confusing, monotonous and meticulous work, about which they could not breathe a word.

By meeting and talking to these fascinating female secret keepers who are still alive today, Tessa Dunlop captures their extraordinary journeys into an adult world of war, secrecy, love and loss. Through the voices of the women themselves, this is a portrait of life at Bletchley Park beyond the celebrated code breakers; it's the story of the girls behind Britain's ability to consistently outsmart the enemy and an insight into the women they have become.

©2015 Tessa Dunlop (P)2016 Hodder & Stoughton
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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What listeners say about The Bletchley Girls

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    5 out of 5 stars

GREAT.

I wish I had bought the book...regrettably i was not keen on the narrator's narration...

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable

Informative and thoroughly interesting history of some amazing women. Well narrated too. A very enjoyable account.

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1 person found this helpful

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wonderful insight into bletchley

thoroughly enjoyed listening to the story, very easy to listen to & follow. Learned a lot about the girls behind the breakthrough. Thank you.

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1 person found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

No storyline

I listened for over 3 hours hoping the writer, she doesn't deserve the title author, to start making sense. There was no storyline to follow. I thought from the title, "The Bletchley Girls" the story would be about the time the girls spent at Bletchley. The writer said she had 14 women she found that had worked at Bletchley. The writer put a lot of verbiage & then would do a quote from one of the women. I would like to hear the story of each woman from when they started at Bletchley until they left. I will have to keep looking.

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3 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

So boring not what I expected. There was no plot to the storyline. A waste of money.

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2 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Very disappointing

The narrator was really difficult to follow, making an already thin storyline almost impossible to listen to. I can’t put my finger on quite what was so hard to follow, maybe it was just that her voice was monotonous and her attempt at putting on accents didn’t really add anything to the story. It wasn’t interesting enough to make the effort to follow. All round very disappointing and a waste of both time and money

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Awful.

Awful narration. Narrator tried to do accents which is very off putting. so much so I binned the book after one chapter. Waste of a monthly credit. Avoid.

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4 people found this helpful