A Highlander who decoded top secret messages for Winston Churchill has played down her wartime role, insisting she was merely “a small cog in a big wheel.”
Inverness-born Christina Morrison will visit the Fort George Museum today to donate items from her personal treasure trove of WWII memorabilia.
Now 96, the mother of five was called to London on the outbreak of the conflict and put to work with the intelligence services in Whitehall.
It marked a major upheaval for the bright young woman, who had been raised in Innes Street, Inverness, as the middle child in a family of 10 musically talented Chisholms.
Her father had served with both the Seaforths and Cameron Highlanders, and she dramatically swapped her role as a clerk, volunteering for national service and joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
Many of the messages she decoded during her stint in London related to events which proved to be of huge historical significance.
However, at her home at Ach an Eas in Inverness yesterday, Mrs Morrison, who has spent most of her life on Skye, was modest about her contribution.
“I don’t think my role was all that important,” she said. “I was only a small cog in a big wheel.
“The women at the time of the war who kept the home fires burning, they were important.”
She frequently deciphered messages headed “For Mr Churchill’s Eyes Only” – and even met the country’s wartime leader on one occasion.
“I was on night duty and going along the corridor with a kettle in my hand and I met this bodach (Gaelic for old man) in his pyjamas with a towel over his arm,” Mrs Morrison said.
“It was the prime minister, Mr Churchill, who had walked along the underground passage from Downing Street. He would probably be over in connection with some urgent matter.
“As we passed, we each said ‘Good evening’ without a pause – and that was the only time I saw him at very close quarters at the War Office.”
Mrs Morrison has encapsulated some of her wartime memories in a book, titled One Day When We Were Young, which will be published soon – fulfilling her early ambition to become an author.
Her donation to the Fort George Museum will join a collection of war medals bequeathed by her family.