I only met Dr Carmen Blacker (1924–2009) once, towards the end of her life, when she was already very ill. Although our only previous contact had been a somewhat scratchy exchange of letters over a possible contribution to a volume of Biographical Portraits that I edited, I found her easy to talk to and charming. Our main common ground was her first book, on Fukuzawa Yukichi, which had been published in 1964, as I started my own far less distinguished career in Japanese Studies. Reading this fascinating mixture of Dr. Blacker's diaries, more formal Writings, and reminiscences by those who knew her makes me wish I had known her better. Her companion and later husband, Dr Michael Loewe, and several former students and friends, contribute memoirs. These inevitably overlap, but they bring out the many formative influences that made her what she was.

Clearly important was family life and school. It was through school that she met Julia Piggott. Carmen was already interested in Japan and the Japanese language but the meeting with Julia Piggott was to provide a strong boost to that interest. Julia, who had actually lived in Japan, was the granddaughter of F. T. Piggott, a legal adviser to the Meiji Government, and the daughter of his son, Major General F. S. T. Piggott, twice military attaché’ in Tokyo. The friendship would last until Julia's death, and the encounter would consolidate Carmen's interest in things Japanese, and eventually lead to her career in Japanese studies. General Piggott, perhaps recognizing a fellow enthusiast, encouraged her and provided her with formal training in the language. He was something of a controversial figure, who could see no wrong in the Japanese, but Carmen clearly regarded him with affection and benefitted from his training as her account of ‘Two Piggotts’, published in 1991, makes clear.

Piggott's tutoring and her own efforts meant that by the time war came with Japan in 1941, she already had a good command of Japanese. After some intensive training in military Japanese at SOAS, she joined Bletchley Park. lt was not a happy experience. She felt undervalued both in terms of salary and the work she was given. However valuable it might have been as war work, she did not enjoy the monotony of carding Japanese words that might just be useful in decoding.