A former member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS), also known as the Wrens, has been honoured with a 1939-1945 War Medal for her service more than 70 years ago.

Honor Baines, 96, was presented with the award on Saturday, September 9, at her home in The Close, after having lived for years at the Joiners Hall on St Ann Street with her late husband, Brigadier David Baines, whom she met in Libya in 1948 when he was being presented an MBE for bravery by her father, who was a governor of Tripolitania.

Honor served in the Wrens from 1944 to 1945 at the age of 18 as a driver in Portsmouth and Southampton, chauffeuring senior naval officers in their staff cars. Her son, Jonathan F. T. Baines, said she “reports having been a hopeless driver and driving her naval ‘3 tonner’ right over a roundabout in Portsmouth as well as hitting a lamppost in Piccadilly when she was driving a senior officer in London.”