Education
Street Anne"s College.
Street Anne"s College.
In 1941, aged just 18, she falsified her age in order to join up with the Women"s Auxiliary Air Force as a cypher officer Serving in Cairo at the height of the Eighth Army"s she worked at the Heliopolis signals base and other secret locations translating top secret signals for the British High Command, including relaying intercepted German Ultra traffic, intelligence considered so secret that it was not even shared directly with the other Allies. Subsequently volunteering for further active service she was posted to Caserta to do cyphers for the Allied advance into Southern Italy.
They had four sons.
Watkins died on October 14, 2012 at the age of 89 at her home in Oxford, after a short illness. Cypher Officer - in Cairo, Kenya, Caserta (2008) Pen Press. A first hand account of the author"s own experiences in the Second World War as an Royal Air Force Cypher officer in the WAAFs, using the British version of the Enigma machine.