AssetID: 54717295
Headline: RAW VIDEO: 'A Marvellous Life': 101-Year-Old Jean Rees Reflects On Wartime Service With The Wrens
Caption: **STRICTLY NO MIRROR, METRO OR THE SUN USAGE** At 101 years old, Jean Rees, who lives in Swansea, Wales still vividly remembers the moment her life changed forever. “I was waiting for my conscription papers to come,” she recalls. “My mum came into the office where I was working and said, ‘You've got the papers you've been waiting for, Jean.’ I was excited, but I didn’t want to show it because it would worry my mum.” It was the early 1940s, and Rees was about to embark on a journey that would shape her life—her service with the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), known affectionately as the “Wrens.” Rees was sent to Southsea, near Portsmouth—not the South Sea Islands she had jokingly hoped for. She stayed at the Pendragon Hotel for two weeks of initial training. “When you join up, you live as if you are on a ship,” she said. “You have to know all the naval terms. We paraded on the prop, learned how to march, and even did our own laundry—called ‘dhobeying’ in the Navy.” Her posting was to HMS Raven, a Fleet Air Arm station in Eastleigh, where she worked from 1942 to 1945 in the regulating office. There, she recorded the details of young conscripts, many just 17 or 18. “I simply had to write notes about them… and ask them, are you T, G, or UA? Temperance, grog, or underage—no rum.” Rees remembers the uncertainty and nerves many of the new recruits felt. “They didn’t know what was happening… it was like me, I didn’t know how I was going to react.” Life at HMS Raven was disciplined but held moments of warmth and camaraderie. Rees recalls cold winters in their “blue tick cabin,” where she and her bunkmates once got in trouble for pinching coal to light a fire. “Smoke was seen coming out of the chimney,” she laughed. “We were on jankers— if you've been naughty, you then have to peel potatoes or something like that, something we didn't want to do.” Despite food shortages, she and her friends found small joys—like spam in batter, and special trips to the Isle of Wight or Winchester just for the rare treat of poached egg on toast. When the war ended, the atmosphere shifted overnight. “We were all very excited. We were given leave to celebrate. We went up to London—there were people everywhere, singing and dancing. Americans, Canadians, the Gurkhas… and a Scottish man with bagpipes. It was wonderful.” Returning to camp was bittersweet. “We all sat down and thought, what are we going to do? We didn’t really want to leave the WRNS. It was like family.” Rees also reflected on her younger brother John, who was evacuated to Canada at age nine. “He came home, and that was lovely. Mum and Dad were very pleased.” During her time as a WRN, Rees recalls how she met her husband. One evening whilst out of a coffee in Portsmouth at the “The Nappy Club,” she met a young RAF man named Bill. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him,” she recalled. “He came back and said, ‘Any Wren needs walking home?’ I said, ‘Oh yes, my billets are just up the road.’” That night, on Southsea Pier, he asked her to marry him. “I said, ‘I’ll think about it,’ and we laughed and joked.” They stayed in touch by telephone—through public phone boxes and eventually married on June 7, 1947, near the anniversary of D-Day. Before being demobbed, Jean and her fellow Wrens started a “round-robin”—a letter that circulated among them, keeping everyone updated on their lives. “We met once a year at Joyce’s (her friend) home in Hambledon. It went on for a long, long time… but sadly, I am now the last robin left.” Even so, Jean’s memories remain strong. “It was a marvellous life, and I shall never ever forget it—nor my friends, my other family. But I was glad to get home in the end, with lots to think about. And I hope life on the planet, and everywhere, will be healthy.”
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