Shrewsbury pensioner awarded medal for her wartime Morse Code skills

Diana O'Brien, now 90, took the brave step of joining the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry at the age of 17 and as she says in her own words never really understood the key role she played in the war effort.

Now, decades later, Mrs O'Brien, who lives at The Ferns Residential Home on Longden Road, has been awarded the War Medal 1939-1945 as recognition for her efforts – which included training at the famous home of the code breakers, Bletchley Park.

Looking back, Mrs O'Brien admits she never quite understood the importance of the role she was performing, but is proud of the work she did before being de-mobbed in January 1946.

She said: "I was in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. I joined up in May 1944. The war was going to end soon but I was only just old enough then to join up having been born in 1926.

"It is what I had wanted to do so when I was able to join up I did.

"I was at Bletchley Park training and learning Morse code. From there they decided they would send me to India. Next thing I know I was going from Delhi to Calcutta and I worked there as a wireless operator before I came back in November 1945.

"We had to train for quite a long time. It was lots of hard work. First of all you had to learn the actual Morse code and then your learnt how to send and receive the messages.

"I worked with two people who were behind the lines and they intercepted the messages and they wanted to get them messages back to England. They gave them to us and we sent them back to England.

"I did not know what we were sending as it was all in code. Having received the coded messages it was all up to the code breakers at Bletchley Park.

"They were broken down there and sent off to whichever part of the government. We never really knew just what we knew.

"We simply took the messages, in code, sent them over and let them break them down.

"You had to work at it. It was not an easy thing to learn but once you had learnt the Morse code you could not forget it. I still remember it now."

Mrs O'Brien, who has four children including a daughter called Julia who lives in Meole Village, was born in Gloucestershire before moving and growing up in Letchworth.

After the war, she moved to the Lake District where she lived with her late husband for about 60 years before moving to Shropshire in July 2015.

Mrs O'Brien said she was delighted to have got the medal.

She said: "I am very proud to have got the medal.

"I think everyone who served in that particular branch deserved recognition as it was not easy and we had to keep it secret and also in your brain.

"I hope what we did was good. We never really knew what the messages said in English as they had to be sent to be broken down. Hopefully we played our part."

Julia Howard, Mrs O'Brien's youngest daughter, said she was proud of her mother's achievements.

She said: "I am incredibly proud.

"Mother used to have a Morse code machine at home and when we were little she would type out messages to us so I do remember that.

"I was aware growing up of what she had done and I am immensely proud."

Mayor of Shrewsbury Ioan Jones presented Mrs O'Brien with her medal at the residential home last week.