At the age of seventeen, with the knowledge that she wouldn’t have an address, and her parents wouldn’t know where she was, Eileen Simpson became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry). After training at the SOE centre at Chicheley Hall in Buckinghamshire, Eileen tells how she went to work at Norgeby House in Baker Street, London, the SOE’s main WW2 control centre for the European country sections. There she spent three years, working in a team with three other women, coding messages sent to operatives in the field, and compiling schedules and frequencies for when SOE agents across Europe should send their messages. Eileen remembers having to be careful not to get too attached to agents due to the heavy loss of personnel, and being all too aware that you shouldn’t discuss work when ‘you’ve got other people’s lives in your hands’. Working six and a half days a week, including through Doodle bomb raids, and the time a V-2 rocket landed on Marylebone Station, the women formed a close-knit group which resulted in lifelong friendships. Eileen recalls being very aware that they had something to work for, and despite having very little time off, she says she ‘loved every minute!’