After leaving the Central Girls’ School, Cambridge, in 1949, I went to work as a Shorthand typist at the Ministries in Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge and during the 1950s, spent several weekends in the ‘Confidential Hut’ as it was known to all Civil Servants in those days.

People of all grades were chosen from the various departments on site, including shorthand typists and clerical staff to spend weekends in ‘The Hut’ in readiness for a nuclear war that was threatening in that decade.

The weekend routine was much the same as being in the office. My duties were manning the noisy teleprinter, sending and receiving messages. Drinks were available but you took your own food. Obviously there were no windows in the building, so you worked under artificial light for 24 hours. I remember a row of camp-beds on which to relax when you were given a two-hour break.

My most vivid memory of the building was the permanent fusty stale smelling atmosphere in ‘The Hut’ and the first thing you did on arriving home was to wash your hair, soak in the bath and put out all the clothes you had been wearing during the weekend for washing on Monday morning.

Of course, being a Civil Servant, I had signed the Official Secrets Act so couldn’t even tell my parents about my weekends.