 | Switchboard operators at work in the Cabinet War Rooms |
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| ‘The weather is so beautiful… it seems terrible having to work at all, especially in our dungeon…’ | Women played a crucial role in the day-to-day life of the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War. The switchboard operators and typists who occupied Room 60 were all civilian women. During the dark days of the Blitz, many of them remained underground day and night.
One switchboard operator remembers that there was no such thing as an emergency call, because every call was treated as urgent. Switchboard operators were even given specially adapted gas masks that would allow them to continue their work in the event of a gas attack.
Workers at the War Rooms were often privy to sensitive information. Typists couldn’t help but read the documents that crossed their desks. One woman is said to have come across the name of her boyfriend’s ship. It had been sunk with the loss of all hands.
All the work done at the War Rooms was top secret. Many of the staff didn't tell their families what they had done until years later. Now, a series of handwritten letters, newly acquired by IWM, shines a light on life, love, and the historic events the women of the War Rooms were witness to.
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 | | | IWM History Festival:
Katja Hoyer | Saturday 25 March, IWM Duxford
Appearing live at IWM History Festival, historian Katja Hoyer explores the German Empire from its violent beginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War.
Enjoy an opportunity to immerse yourself in real stories, for people who know why history matters. | |
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| Edith Florence Cochrane was a Clerk in the War Cabinet Office. She was known as ‘Peggy’, after Peggy Cochrane, a famous singer at the time. She also spent time working for the Deception Committee. A collection of letters from Peggy to her boyfriend, Lance Corporal Ronald ‘Ron’ Gibson, were recently donated to IWM.
Full of fascinating insight, the letters cover the period from May 1944 until November 1945. References to the Cabinet War Rooms are fleeting, although she comments that it is cold in her ‘dungeon’ and mentions her time ‘underground’.
In late May 1944, not long after meeting Peggy at a dance, Ron was confined to camp in preparation for D-Day. Peggy's letter of 28 May contains several references to knowing where he might be, and for what reason. She laments that it might be the end of their fledgling relationship:
‘Since you seem to have disappeared… I feel it is high time I wrote to find out what has become of you. Of course, I’ve a pretty good idea… from where I’m sitting it looks very much as if we’ve had it. It’s a depressing thought.’
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Discover more stories from this secret Second World War nerve centre.
Plan your visit to Churchill War Rooms today. | |
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 | Letter from Peggy to Ron dated 31 May 1944 which mentions having to work in her 'dungeon' |
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| But Peggy’s letters to Ron continued. After VE Day she writes much more openly, describing the mood in central London on that momentous occasion: 'It was all one seething mass of people, very colourful, with the women all wearing their brightest frocks... lots of red and bright blue.’
In two letters written on 17 August 1945, she talks about the lack-lustre VJ Day celebrations. She remarks, ‘You can’t go on having victory days – it gets a bit monotonous!' She even mentions Tube Alloys, code for the UK’s research into the development of nuclear weapons, and her thoughts on the atomic bomb:
‘...it terrifies me to think of future wars... I never thought before that war could be abolished, I think now it will have to be… where... will be the point of perfecting all the bombs to pick people off gradually when everyone knows that it can be done, if need be, in one fell swoop.’
Peggy and Ron married in November 1945, when the letters end. In 1951, the two had a son together. In 2022, Peggy and Ron's son placed the letters into IWM's care, ensuring their preservation for future generations.
Now part of IWM's collections, the letters provide a compelling picture of Peggy’s daily life as a modern woman in wartime. They also represent an exciting new addition to our collection of stories from women who worked at the War Rooms during those tense days and nights. |
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