Irene Jessie Young

Other names: 
Her married surnames were Cairns and Brown
Dates: 
16 February 1919 – 7 June 2017

Irene Young was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of Samuel Young, bank clerk and Emily M. Gordon.

She graduated from Edinburgh University in 1942, and was recruited to work at Bletchley Park.

She was widowed after only six months of marriage when her first husband was killed whilst on a secret mission behind enemy lines in France in 1944.
After the war she moved to South Africa, where she married her second husband. The couple returned to Scotland, where Irene worked in a University of Edinburgh library.

She wrote Enigma Variations: a Memoir of Love and War in 1990 which was expended and republished in 2000 with the subtitle Love, War and Bletchley Park.

Sources
Birth certificate
1919 685/6 136