Madge Trull was born July 22, 1922. Madge is a Londoner, though she was born in Chile; her father was involved in the import-export trade. He brought his young family back to England as his children were growing up, as he wanted them to be raised and educated in the proper English tradition. Madge attended school, as events in Europe began to spiral out of control. Her father’s hope had been to send her to a finishing school in France, but the timing was not right as the war was underway at that time. Madge and her siblings ended up being in the thick of it, with four of them donning uniforms and joining the war effort. By that time Madge had taken work at Elizabeth Arden in London; she gave up that fashionable work for the duties of a WREN. Madge also met John Trull in the middle part of the war; he was a flight instructor who became a fighter pilot; the two of them fell in love and married, seeing one another as often as they could. One day Madge was looking forward to a date with John when a friend of his called to tell Madge that John had gone missing in action. He was gone for six months, and as Madge later learned he was saved by members of the Belgian Resistance, whom he joined on a number of missions. Meanwhile, Madge’s duties with the WRENs moved in a new direction when she was selected for duty at Eastcote, one of the out-stations for Bletchley Park. There Madge was trained in the difficult code-breaking tasks that became integral to Britain’s victory. Madge worked there during the stressful times of 1944, all the while thinking that John was dead. With the help of the Resistance and British Intelligence John returned, a shadow of himself; he built himself back up with Madge’s help and went to work for MI9. As the end of the war approached, John and Madge were released from their service, and they emigrated to Canada, where they joined in the rhythms of postwar Canadian life.
Madge Trull was interviewed in her home in Mississauga, where Scott Masters visited her in the summer of 2019, courtesy of the Memory Project.
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