A life, deciphered

ASHBURNHAM – In her first public New England performance of the play “Once In ... Never Out!”, June R. Ballinger, 68, will portray her mother, a female code breaker at Bletchley Park, England, during World War II, at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 20 at Cushing Academy.

The event is free.

Before the 2014 release of “The Imitation Game,” the movie about English mathematical genius Alan Turing who cracks the German Enigma code during WWII with the help of fellow mathematicians, Ms. Ballinger had already written the solo play about her mother’s life.

Throughout her childhood, Ms. Ballinger’s mother, Nancy Annan, said little about her work as part of the elite team that developed Colossus, the world’s first operational, programmable electronic computer, that decrypted some of the most significant signals during the war.

“Like all Bletchley recruits, my mother signed the Official Secrets Act that bound her to absolute secrecy concerning her war work,” Ms. Ballinger said during an interview.

Ms. Annan kept the secret from everyone, including her husband and children, for nearly 50 years.

It wasn’t until the day after her mother died at age 93 in December 2013, that Ms. Ballinger discovered a box full of letters and photos in the bottom of a closet in her bedroom at an assisted living facility in Princeton, New Jersey, that her mother had carried around for 70 years. A year later, she would find her mother’s personal diary and decided to tell the story her mother never shared.

“All my life, I grew up knowing mummy was in the Royal Navy, but she was tight-lipped about what she did,” Ms. Ballinger said. “I was with her every day before she died, but missed the event of her death because I was at a writing workshop. I came home to see mummy and she had died in my absence. I hated myself for that and said that I was going to tell her story. Then, I found this box. A year later, I found her five-year diary.

“British are not like Americans. They don’t talk about feelings, don’t ruminate and share - at least not with their daughters,” she continued. “British during the war, they won because of strong character. You don’t complain. You pull your socks on and get on with it. Everyone was losing people during World War II. You just get on with it.”

The TV, film and regional theater performer also plays herself as a child in the play. June, the secondary character, is somewhat fictionalized in terms of her asking her mother so many questions, Ms. Ballinger said.

“As a kid, I was not pressing her for details,” she said. “June, in the play, much more inquisitive than I was.

“I learned that she was one of the code breakers at Bletchley Park who worked on the world’s first electronic computer, Colossus. She loved professor (Maxwell) Newman and was part of an elite group of women. They were respected, more respected than just machine operators and did more than operated Colossus. They broke all correspondence between Hitler and his top command. It was a real coup in 1944. It was the start of getting the Lorenz code.”

Her mother knew Alan Turing, who helped crack the Nazi military's Enigma machine, a rotor cipher machine.

“I would hear little anecdotes now and then,” Ms. Ballinger said. “Not much detail. I didn’t know that much at all. I would say, ‘Come on, mum. You can tell me. There are all these books and newspaper articles about it.’ ”

She asked her mother about Bletchley Park and told her she wanted to know more about computers and espionage.

“But they were signed to a life of secrecy — the pain of imprisonment,” Ms. Ballinger said. “They were so conditioned not to tell anyone. Two people who were married who worked at Bletchley Park were told not to talk amongst themselves about it lest they slip up in front of their children. Work around Colossus is still classified. Books say a lot, but they don’t tell everything.

“British are good at keeping things secret and keeping the cards close to their chest. Mum would watch the news here in America and was appalled. She’d say, ‘I can’t believe Americans just tell everything. They just blurt out everything. How can you run a government?’ That certainly was not the case in the UK, not when she was a young woman.”

Ms. Ballinger first started writing the play during a solo workshop. She had about 15 minutes of material on her mother.

“I folded in what I knew,” she said. “Americans were like, ‘What’s Bletchley Park?’ No one knew. Then the movie came out and ‘Bletchley Circle’ (TV series) came out. It was a gift for me because now people had context. It turned into the one-hour, 10-minute play it is now.”

The play is popular among women, she said, considered a feminist play by many.

“I never set out to write a feminist play,” Ms. Ballinger said. “A lot about Bletchley Park was the great empowerment women felt. My mother was in her 20s and regarding as valued, with skills and a brain. The women added something. The men had logics, but the women had intuitive senses professor Newman thought were vital to create this one machine. It was an exciting time for these young women of the middle class, professional class and debutantes … they all felt vital and needed.

“Then the war ended and they were back to the nurseries to replenish the country’s population and were discouraged from working.”

Her mother came to America to escape it, but found the same thing here in Connecticut, left with a feeling that all the progress women made during the war was erased.

“Women didn’t work – it made men look bad and like they were not good providers,” Ms. Ballinger said. “There was an implosion women felt, like they were only meant to be attractive, good wives.

“Young women of the current generation need to know what it was like in the 50s and 60s and whose shoulders they stand on. Old people today, they led vibrant lives. As the waves of politics goes back and forth, we need to ensure freedoms women have now and that we stand up for them.”

Ms. Ballinger said that is the reason she also performs the play in schools and colleges.

“We need to remember Bletchley Park in honoring our great generation and the important story for our youngest generation,” she said.

Ms. Ballinger said she plans to visit with students at Cushing the day before the performance and also answer questions after the play.

The event is part of Cushing Academy’s Performing Arts Series. Reservations are based on space availability and can be made by emailing your name, contact information and the number of attendees to reservations@cushing.org.

For more information, including directions and parking information, visit www.cushing.org/page/arts/performing-arts-series/once-innever-out.