We had given up our home in Guildford in March 1939, and being mostly on the move until war broke out we saw little of Alan: during the next six years he could spend only snatches of leave with us, for immediately on the declaration of war he was taken on as a temporary Civil Servant in the Foreign Office, in the Department of Communications.

As a “back-room boy” he was not allowed to enlist, though he served for a time in the Home Guard. At first even his where abouts were kept secret, but later it was divulged that he was working at Bletchley Park, Bletchley. No hint was ever given of the nature of his secret work, nor has it ever been revealed. The enforced silence concerning his work quite ruined him as a correspondent: his letters from then on became infrequent and scrappy. However on his occasional visits to us and on my visits to him I heard of some of the truly Alanesque things that happened during the war years.

His ability was early recognized in his department where he became known as “the Prof.,” or simply “Prof.” He lived at the Crown Inn, Shenley-Brook-End, some three miles out of Bletchley. Here his kind landlady, Mrs. Ramshaw, took great care of him and generally mothered him and admonished him about his clothes. Someone on the staff at Bletchley Park reported to a relative of ours that Alan was “wrapped up in his theories and wild as to hair and clothes and conventions, but a dear fellow.”