In a loud and crowded pub one night, a British friend handed me Time Out London. "You might want to check out the Churchill War Rooms," he said, pointing to an article. "Despite what you Yanks think, the war did start before Pearl Harbor."
I went the next day.
The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in the former Cabinet War Rooms--the actual underground bomb-proof bunker near No. 10 Downing Street, which sheltered Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his staff during the war.
Walking through the War Rooms was like stepping back in time. I vividly remember stopping short in front of the cramped typists' room, where Churchill's secretaries had once toiled. In my ear (thanks to the audio guide) were the words of one of Mr. Churchill's wartime secretaries, Miss Elizabeth Layton. "It was explained that working for the Prime Minister was not easy, particularly at first." She was told, "You're bound to have it a bit rough at first, and if you'd rather leave now, you can still do so." She concluded, in the driest of tones, "I thought I'd have a try."
For a moment, I felt as if time itself had collapsed and compressed. I was there, really there--and not just there but then, too--with Miss Layton and the other typists, taking crucial dictation under brutal deadlines, fingers flying while typing, worrying about bombs exploding overhead.
I knew I'd found my heroine and setting for a novel.
Researching Mr. Churchill's Secretary, I was privileged to correspond with Mrs. Elizabeth Layton Nel, née Miss Elizabeth Layton, living in South Africa. Although she was quick to assure me that none of the typists would ever have had time for any of my fictional heroine Maggie Hope's hijinks, she seemed genuinely delighted that someone was inspired by her memoir.
Mrs. Nel, who spoke at the reopening of the Churchill War Rooms in London in 2005, has since passed away. However, I hope that she, and the other secretaries, would recognize the place in which they performed so crucial a role, at so perilous a time. --Susan Elia MacNeal, author of Mr. Churchill's Secretary