Pioneering trans ex-Wren dies: Mark Rees WRNS

Trans rights advocate and author Mark Rees, who died 26 July, was the second former Wren  (member of the Women's Royal Naval Service) to transition.* The funeral was 23 August.

Mark used the pronoun 'he' later. He was first trans person to take a case to the European Court of Human Rights. While not successful in 1987, his campaigning in Press for Change had a major impact for decades.

Christine Burns, trans actvist, was the first to make the announcement on social media. She's interviewed Mark too.

# hear her very moving interview at  https://lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk/2008/02/interview-with-trans-pioneer-mark-rees/. 

# see chapter 7 of her book Trans Britain. 

--

Mark (1942-23) was known for activism much later, not for being a 'lady Tar'. He was a WRNS driver 1962-64: a 'Motor Transport Wren'. **

I tried to interview him, for my book, Women in the Royal Navy, and then for an article on Trans seafarers. He never replied to my correspondence. I respected his choice - but regretted it. 

His dad Hubert Rees, known as William, was a merchant seaman who became an officer. Mark wanted to go to sea too. But women in the WRNS were not allowed to do so in until 1990. It appears that he didn't consider joining the MN.

Mark's career as a Wren included being interviewed aboard Captain Scott's Discovery at the Embankment; trained at Burghfield, then at RNAS Culdrose, Cornwall; and later drafted to HMS Excellent in Portsmouth. 

Mark was treated as a 'homosexual' when in the WRNS. At the time it was a homophobic organisation. The word 'trans' was barely used.

'I explained that it was my lack of femininity which posed more problems than my supposed sexuality,' Mark said in his autobiography (p56). 'Because of the lack of information, I regarded myself as some kind of "deviant" lesbian. I couldn't find another label.'

The Navy was far from understanding about diversity at that point. And some WRNS friends and officers were troubling too. But he was helped to a degree by:

# Ken, the RNAS Culdrose chaplain, with whom he remained in touch for 40 years

# the Senior Medical Officer at Culdrose, who nevertheleess 'was unable to offer any other hope regarding a "sex change". "No doctor would do that; he would regard it as a mutilation" .  The doctor was obviously unware there had been two female-to-male changes in the 1940s UK.

# a kind psychiatrist at the Portsmouth naval barracks who wanted Mark to do psychoanalysis twice a week for two years. 'I couldn't understand what the point of it all was. They'd not succeed in making me feminine unless they gave me a brain transplant.'

# warmly supportive WRNS Second Officer Nancy Thomson 'was probably of more help than the psychiatrist . I remain indebted to her.' (Nancy went on to become Deputy Director of the WRNS in 1977, active in WRNS Benevolent Trust, and was always renowned for humanity).

# Netley Military Psychiatric Hospital, who labelled Mark 'homosexual' and recommended a medical discharge as 'I was never going to settle in the service ... [so] it was almost a relief.' 

He transitioned in 1971 and published his memoir, "Dear Sir or Madam" (Cassell) in 1996. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/.../Dear-Sir-Madam.../plp. The WRNS bit is on pp50-67.

Other Wrens and diversity

*The first known Wren to transition was Stephen Davis, in 1961. Born in 1936 in rural County Durham. On marriage to a navy artificer this Wren found they could no longer pretend all was well in terms of identity. They and their husband split up. Stephen re-joined the WRNS, left again, and later transitioned F to M in the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne. Later they worked as a market clerk and planned to marry their cis girlfriend. No more is known.

**  Other path-breaking 'Motor Transport Wrens' were the famous lesbian WW2 Wren Nancy Spain. (top pic). Later a broadcaster, Nancy(1917-64)  was never formally out. 

Her partner was another Wren driver, publisher Joan Werner Laurie 1920-1964.  (Middle pic) For a time Nancy and Joan had a triangular arrangement with racing driver Sheila Van Damm. (Lower pic). 

If only Mark could have met them back them. His 1960s would have been a little easier.

Naval women allowed to raise flag, 1976

A restriction on what women could do on naval ships was lifted in 1976. The Portsmouth News on Friday 6 December 2019 reprised a celebratory article about what may have seemed significant step forward 43 years ago.
https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/retro/wrens-make-history-on-board-hms-victory-in-1976-1-9166859?fbclid=IwAR39PHBhK40GIGCe45MP_Xt-muScUvKGlg9sGr7kx_ev8cFx5iu1jL1vyIg

 'A little piece of naval history was made when two Wrens [members of the Women's Royal Naval Service] raised the White Ensign on board Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, for the first time.
'While Royal Marines’ bugler David Butler sounded "colours", Wren Donne Lawson, 19, centre, from Scotland, and Wren Christine Tetlow, 19, from Eastbourne, raised the ensign.
'The Wrens had just finished a two-month spell of duty in Victory, acting as guides for public tours.
'This was the first time Wrens had been employed as full-time guides and they had proved popular with visitors.'

You may need to know: 

# Wrens were only allowed to serve on seagoing ships in 1990, 14 years after this significant day.
# Under a thousand of the 3,000 RN women are at sea at this moment. There is still no female admiral, although the navy's equal opportunities policies are impressive these days: women certainly CAN raise flags.
# The Victory is a museum ship, and static. These Wrens were not sailing; they went home at night. But women (as seafarers' wives) had sailed in the Victory in its heyday, and in other battleships. Christine and Donne were conducting visitors around what had been women's floating homes. However, the Wrens may not have known women had preceded them. This is because women were not, at that point, much included in maritime histories. Now women's presence in Victory  is commonly known through this painting of the Battle of Trafalgar by Maclise. Mary Sperring and Mary Buick are thought to have been aboard: see https://verecunda.tumblr.com/post/64719131369/the-women-of-trafalgar

# The White Ensign is the navy's flag and has immense significance. These Wrens were handling a revered icon.
# Historically women, not men, constructed such flags in 'colour lofts' in the segregated and hierarchical royal dockyards. Like some aspects of rope making, flag-making tasks were deemed 'women's work'. Christine and Donne could well have been handling another woman's handiwork.

In other words, history is far from being a process in which women were increasingly or quickly allowed rights to participate fully in naval life. Nor have their roles and connected contributions to the Senior Service been recognised in adequately nuanced ways. 

Photographing WW2 Wrens - and Wren photographers

Today, at the National Media Museum in Bradford, the Royal Photographic Society ran a Women in Photography Day. (See http://www.rps.org/events/2015/november/21/women-in-photography---bradford)

One of the four speakers, Anthony Penrose, offered a moving and interesting presentation about his mother, Lee Miller (pictured below by David Scherman), and her work photographing women in WW2. Miller's subjects included members of the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens).

Some were published in Vogue November 1941, accompanying an article by romantic traveller Lesley Blanch. In W.R.N.S. on the job Blanch said:

'[A}lready I observe [that]... type distinctions are crystallising in the women’s services. The W.A.A.F. product is entirely different from that of the A.T.S. The Wrens, in their turn, have produced an individual type: a face, manner and spirit as much their own, and the outcome of navy traditions, as the ‘bell-bottom serge’ uniforms they wear so well.

'Officers and ratings are alike in forming this definite Wren type. In abstract, the Wren has a serenity, even a faint austerity, a balanced detachment: a quietness which is not dull, a dignity which is not pompous. They are disciplined rather than dragooned, unified, rather than uniform.

'And lest these sober eulogies give the impression that the Wrens are smug patterns of female virtue, icily removed from the pleasures and tempo of the times, I hasten to add they are pretty and feminine, as well-groomed as well-dressed, and as concerned with complexion, manicure and hairdressing as any other women, in or out of uniform.' (http://www.bookblast.com/blog/?p=162#more-162)
~~
I myself think Blanch's view was fanciful, totalising and rather silly.

Wrens were a more diverse bunch. Lee Miller's pictures made this point very effectively. Her images implicily suggest a much more nuanced view.

Four years later Hollis & Carter (who later published the autobiography of WRNS director Vera Laughton Mathews), published other images by Miller in a 79-page volume, Wrens in Camera. The words were by KM Palmer, by far the best journalist describing WW2 Wrens' lives.

My favourite Lee Miller photo of Wrens is this one, because it shows women's daring use of risky spaces. 'Wrens climbing down from the quarter boom', http://www.leemiller.co.uk. © Lee Miller Archives, England 2015. All rights reserved.

Join the Wrens and become a photographer
Ironically, joining the WRNS was a very good way for a woman to gain training as a photographer. The WRNS employed at least two women in ‘photography work’ in WW1. During WW2 some were assistants (see pic).

Some were proper photographers. One of them, Pat Gould (see pic) made the front cover of Illustrated News magazine as ‘Fleet Air Arm Camera girl.’

Lipsticked (for the camera, as Wrens in uniform could not wear makeup), confident, and in her flying gear the Wren was posed in the sun against an aircraft, bearing a camera as long as her arm. She was a visual suggestion that this was a glamorous travelling job - a kind of Lee Miller-style job, in fact. Some 180 Wrens were trained in all-female groups. (http://www.rnpa.org.uk/)

After the war no Wrens were photographers until 1969, when twenty one Wrens were trained as Photographic Assistants. The change was probably a way to deal with staffing shortages and to cut costs (as non-seagoing staff, Wrens did not have to be paid the sea allowance to which naval men were entitled).

Three years later the ‘assistant’ tag was dropped. From 1971 ‘Wren Photographers’ followed a similar path to naval men. According to Jan Larcombe, who after 1981 was the Senior Instructor at the Naval Photographic School, in 1987 Wrens were fully integrated with the male training at the Joint School of Photography RAF Cosford.

WRNS photographers were often sent to ships in port as they were better received than their male colleagues; a woman could brighten men’s days and her camera was forgiven.

Today, there continues to be a Photographic Branch of the Navy, which includes 41 female and male photographers. They still train at the (now) Defence School of Photography, at RAF Cosford. (See Jan Larcombe's excellent archive at http://www.users.waitrose.com/~jandor/index.htm)

Women in Photography
This day school in Bradford today asked interesting questions including the perennial one about whether women's art is different from men's. The answer seemed to be 'not necessarily, but women photographers' processes are different.'

This includes our relationships with sitters, and our access to money and power. Inequalities affect the equipment and training we can get, and the way our work is received, especially by galleries and photographic organisations.

It's very interesting to look for difference in style between images of Wrens by Miller and by male photographers, such as George HW Tomlin, see pic below.

Of course, the Wrens couldn't choose the way they were represented. By contrast, when Linda Marchant was speaking about Pinewood photographer Cornel Lucas's images, she revealed that some female stars told photographers what they wanted. Diana Dors, for example, commanded Lucas to come to the right spot to take this picture of her in her mink bikini on a gondola in Venice, 1955 during the film festival.



Confident stars at film festivals might seem a far cry from servicewomen in wartime. But the connection is that Wrens were also civilian women whose ideas of themselves were partly constructed by Hollywood.

The flattering versions of their identities as servicewomen were bolstered by the ways they were represented by photographers such as Miller and Cecil Beaton (see pic). These Wrens looked like could-be stars, not just lowly support staff for the Navy. Heroic, bold, confident - and yes, admirably stylish.

That version of Wrens as ultra-chic women who could cope with anything continued to be purveyed in post-war movies.
This included the iconic 1953 naval war feature The Cruel Sea. Its Wren star, Virginia McKenna - Third Officer Julie Hallam, was later portayed by Lucas.

~~
This blog item arises from research I'm doing for my next book, Women and the Royal Navy, IB Tauris/Nationa; Museum of the Royal Navy, 2017.

Drawing WW2 Wrens at work: Gladys E Reed

Gladys E Reed has given the world some of the best images ever of life in the WRNS life. Her newly-acquired sketches, maianly of women personnel) are on display at the National Maritime Museum till 15 July.


The Museum says:
'She joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) in 1943. From February to July 1943 she was in the Woolwich class and trained at the coding school HMS Cabbala, a shore base near Warrington for wireless telegraph operators.

Between 1943 and 1944, Reed worked as a Wireless Telegraph Operator in the Liverpool and Birkenhead area, and was stationed at the shore base HMS Eaglet, Liverpool, the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Approaches.

In her off-watch time, Reed kept a sketch record of the work being done by the WRNS, mostly drawn in 5B pencil on cheap paper.

She apologetically wrote to the National Maritime Museum Director, Frank Carr:
‘I am afraid you will be more than a little shocked at the untidy state they are in.
'They were sketched under all sorts of conditions, have been carried wherever I have been stationed, and passed through many people's hands, so that since 1944 have become very grubby.
'I console myself with the thought that they may still reflect a little of that busy, happy atmosphere that did exist in the WRNS – especially in the “open air” categories'.

And the museum would love to to know something more about her. Can anyone help? Contact curator Melanie Vandenbrouck.

WW2 un/welcomes to servicewomen on warships

(Wrens were seen as suitable for serving grog ashore, not for drinking it at sea along with shipmates.)

Most people think women were never, ever, on warships in WW2. But I’ve just been to Portsmouth’s National Museum of the Royal Navy to give a very illustrated talk: ‘Grog, darning and gendered un/welcomes; Wrens and QARNNS nurses on WW2 warships.’ (Jan 8)
The point was to discuss the women who were exceptionally given passage on Royal Navy vessels in WW2, as semi-members of the crew. They were either Wrens being evacuated when overseas, or naval nurses (QARNNS) assisting homeward-bound British POWs as the war ended. Their warship was the first available ship that could take them.
For example, Jane Eldridge (below)was on HMS Renown because she was cyphering for Churchill, going to and from the crucial Tehran conference on this fast ship. He needed cypherers and coders with him.
(with thanks to the Association of Wrens: http://www.wrens.org.uk/gallery/?start=54)

WELCOMES VARIED
Welcomes for these ‘lady intruders’ varied, depending on the time in the war, the seas, and the women’s roles and attitudes. They got in trouble if they asked for grog or got in the way of battle. But they were welcomed if they darned and kept to women’s traditional place.
A large portion of my talk was built around a fascinating 2004 mini-memoir by Mary Sturt (later Pratt) (Recollections of a War-time Wren, part 2,http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/67/a3436067.shtml)


TALKS' BENEFITS
Giving talks is a wonderful activity because of all the expertise you are offered by an audience afterwards. This evening was particularly useful because so many men there had been or were in the Royal Navy. They were able to say how the situation looked from their perspective.
Several sent me follow-up multi-page emails full of background information and advice about where to look for more evidence. The topic could well make an article.
Certainly the new knowledge I’ve gained will feed into the book I’ll be writing for 2017, on the history of women in the Royal Naval service (IB Tauris).
Thank you, everyone, including Radio Solent (Jan 8, the Julian Clegg show) and the Portsmouth News (Jan 13), who interviewed me and gave it publicity.

The lost history of Wrens and QARNNS on battleships in WW2: news of event in Jan 2014

A uniformed service woman on a wartime battleship? Surely it's a seeming contradiction that can't be countenanced, like, for example, Prince William marrying a North Korean barber.

But ... it happened. Royal Navy vessels in WW2 exceptionally carried women as semi-members of the crew. They were either Wrens being evacuated or going out to overseas postings, or naval nurses(QARNNS assisting homeward-bound British Prisoners of Wars as the conflict ended.

WELCOME TO A TALK
On Wednesday January 8 I'm giving a highly illustrated talk on the subject at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. "Grog, darning and gendered un/welcomes; Wrens and QARNNS nurses on WW2 warships" takes place at 5o'clock and is free. (http://www.nmrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/Research%20Programme%20leaflet%202013-2014.pdf)

In it I'll be looking at the way these women were seen as intruders and anomalies that had to be accommodated into closed and traditional masculine institutions. They were "matter out of place", to use an anthropological concept.

WRENS
Great tension caused by some Wrens who were seen as transgressing gendered boundaries by expecting that if they worked as men did they should also get men’s rewards, including grog. Wrens on warships were positioned as boys (at best) or troublemakers and spoilers to be got rid of (at worst.
But on some more progressive ships officers were proud to flaunt Wrens on deck as they sailed in a celebratory way into the world’s harbours.

QUARNNS
The only accounts of QARNNS on ships show that they were welcomed, and even made honorary members of ship’s companies, because they were not challenging. They sewed for the men and did not expect to be treated as full participants.
In other words, they behaved as lady visitors traditionally did: appreciatively and supportively. The outcome was sometimes marriage.

SO WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT GENDERED ATTITUDES?
With what degrees of welcome and dismay were women, as matter out of place and feminised representatives of civilian and domestic life, handled by their hosts?
What place could women negotiate in total institutions geared to war, the support of the status quo, and the avoidance of ‘weak’ emotions?
And what do these cases reveal about women’s and men’s attitudes towards something approximating gender equality?
--
Using concepts such as ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas) and ‘hosts and guests’ in ‘total institutions’ (Goffman) this accessible but scholarly talk explores three recorded cases as examples of possible underlying trends in attitudes towards gender on British warships in WW2.
Why do it? Because during my research into women at sea in both world wars, for a book to be published by Yale University Press next year, I stumbled over these women and found their experience fascinating and telling.
I want to share it with you and anyone who's interested.
Hopefully it will be helpful in understanding naval men's attitudes towards women fifty years later when females were allowed to serve on some warships, as Smiles' cartoon shows (May 2000, Navy News).
The caption reads "The last [HMS] Dauntless had an all-female crew - why not the next?" So far, of course, there has been no all-female warship, although there were many all-male ones.

Fighting Naval discrimination

It's just been announced that a woman naval officer has been given an out-of-court settlement for the suffered sexual discrimination in the Royal Navy.

Although this blog happily reports women who DO make it to captain ships, etc, Jacqueline Cartner's long battle shows not only that she personally was passed over for promotion. So too were other women.

Michael Powell writes about her in 'Wren in sex equality fight settles case against MoD settlement,in the Portsmouth Evening News, published on Saturday 21 July 2012.

'After two years of legal battles, Jacqueline Cartner, 42, who served at HMS Collingwood in Fareham, has accepted a confidential payout and signed a gagging order preventing her from discussing her case.

'The MoD’s move has killed off the threat of a legal precedent being set which may have led to dozens more lawsuits costing taxpayers millions of pounds.

'Since 2010, two separate judges ruled Ms Cartner was passed over for promotion in 2008 on the grounds that, as a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, she had elected not to serve at sea when the rules were changed to allow women on warships in 1993.

'Fearing a potential wave of litigation from other ex-wrens, the MoD spent £126,000 fighting the rulings. Last December, a High Court judge sent the case back to square one by ordering a fresh employment tribunal this autumn. But now the case has been dropped.

'A navy spokeswoman told The News: "We are pleased that this long-running case has now been concluded by mutual agreement. The terms are confidential between the parties."...

'Ms Cartner, who was made an MBE by the Queen in 2001, was unable to comment because of the confidentiality order she signed.The Navy said it will now review the case to see if ‘appropriate lessons’ can be learned.

'Former navy Wren and employment law expert Sue Ball, who is a director at Verisona solicitors in Portsmouth, said: "This looks like a good result for the MoD, although it must have stuck in their throat to pay out money.

‘"Litigation is always a risky and uncertain process and if the MoD had gone back to the tribunal again and it went against them then it would have had set a case law precedent that could have caused them a problem.

‘"If I was acting for someone else in the same position as Jacquie, I’d be annoyed because I would’ve lost the opportunity to have case law to support our arguments."’

Milestones in Royal Navy equal opps - achieved with feminist agency

Sarah West: commanding.Picture by Leading Airman M Hogan, Crown Copyright/MOD 2011

Commander Sarah West (40) on May 27 became the first woman to command a major warship in the British Royal Navy. She joined the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland in Rosyth. It's only taken 450 years.

Looking at the media coverage is interesting. Everyone is for it, apart from the odd misogynist tweeter. Everyone says that of course she must be a highly competent person, gender aside, because you don't rise to such heights otherwise. The Navy can't afford to let just any new driver loose on its pricey real estate. An estimated 93 per cent of men don't reach command level.

'Commander West said:"Taking command of HMS Portland is definitely the highlight of my 16 years in the RN so far. It is a challenge that I am fully trained for and ready to undertake."'

'Commander West, who lives in Middlesex, joined the RN in 1995.Born and educated in Lincolnshire, she graduated from the University of Hertfordshire with an honours degree in mathematics. Trained as a warfare officer, she has had a number of sea appointments, which included a deployment to the Gulf... She commanded HMS Ramsey, HMS Penzance, HMS Pembroke and most recently HMS Shoreham as part of the 1st Mine Countermeasures Squadron.'

So when/how did it become alright to have women in such top roles?

And what has it taken? 40 years of battling for equal rights to reach this point. Many career failures and many life-wrecking anti-discrimination cases preceded this victory. Sarah West's promotion could not have occurred without hundreds of courageous women and men battling for decades for change within the Navy, WRNS and maybe the MoD. So let's raise a glass to them.

To celebrate the progress the MoD published a list of milestones that tell the story. See http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/PeopleInDefence/MilestonesReachedForWomenInTheRoyalNavy.htm.

It omits the role of some very clever quietly feminist campaigners, of obstructions and of statistics, which can put matters in perspective. So in the interests of justice this is an slightly amended version.

My changes are in bold. And my statistical calculations are open to challenge, but based on the best that can be from data on the internet research. I'll be doing fuller calculations with MoD stats later.

KEY POINTS IN WOMEN'S NAVAL HISTORY

1917: The Women’s Royal Naval Service is launched following heavy naval losses in the first world war and a manperson power shortage and pressure by high-powered feminists. It's headed by a suffragist with naval family, Katharine Furse. But women are not allowed to do seagoing work. Wrens number 7,000 at peak, one per cent of naval forces (407,316. Britain's is the largest navy in the world with 700 ships.

1919: WRNS are disbanded The total 100 per cent of the remaining 4,281 women lose their role, by comparison to 61 per cent of the men in the navy (from 407,316 in 1918 to 192,000, but 640,000 served in total). Ex-Wrens continue to develop women's maritime skills through the Sea Rangers. The Association of Wrens keeps up the solidarity and pride

1939: WRNS are re-formed with the onset of the second world war numbering 74,000 women doing 200 different jobs. But less than 100 are allowed to work deep sea, despite their willingness to do so. Many use the opportunity to work on small boats, sail out to moored ships as boarding officers, and to travel overseas. Vera Laughton Mathews, the director is a former journalist for suffrage journals and also from a naval family. The navy has at least 700 ships. There are 923,000 men in the Royal Navy in WW2, at peak, so the WRNS are one twelfth the size.

1946: WRNS are reduced to 3,000, just 4 per cent of their wartime total. This compares to male staffing levels being cut to 20 per cent of the former total (By 1947 there were 195,000 men in the Navy as opposed to 923,000 at peak). Britain's is now the second largest navy in the world, after the US, with 800 commissioned ships that year. Again the Association of Wrens keeps up the solidarity and pride.

1974: An impartial survey takes place, which finds women should be integrated in the Royal Navy.

1976 WRNS officers' training is integrated with naval men's training, at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. This means that men start being able to see for themselves that women can be competent and are human beings, not an inferior but charming sub-species.

1990: Because of a lack of sufficiently competent male applicants, navy formally allows women to go to sea with men. In fact they'd been wangling ways to do so for years.

1994. The WRNS becomes part of the Royal Navy. Officially 'Wrens' no longer exist; naval women personnel do.

2009: Medic Kate Nesbitt is the first woman in the Royal Navy to be awarded the military cross after braving Taliban fire to tend a fallen comrade in Afghanistan.WW2 Wrens had earlier won awards for bravery.

2011: Navy says women will join men aboard submarines from 2013, many years after other navies had accepted them. The excuses that there was not enough space for separate toilets, and that nuclear subs might affect unborn children seems to have dropped away.

2012: The first female commander of a major Royal Navy warship Cdr Sarah West takes charge of HMS Portland. The MoD says it expects three more vessels will be commanded by women by the end of this year, meaning 5 per cent of its 79 commissioned ships. The number of women has dropped from 4,535 in 1990 to 3,400 today. They are 10 per cent of the total 34,4000 people in the Royal Navy. Some roles are still closed to women. In terms of personnel, the UK is no longer in the top ten of the world's navies. In terms of tonnage it's fourth after the US, China, and Russia. The US has 369,000 personnel and 430+ ships.

WW2 Wrens shooting spotlighted,

WW2 image of servicewomen are usually positive. They're 'our girls', working for 'our victory'. But now a story emerges of a Wren in uniform whom a mystery assailant shot four times as she was returning from an errand. She died.

The question is, was this a crime motivated by hostility to Wrens, to women, this particular woman, or was it just random? A crime of passion? Or politics? Or just a fluke? But let's bear in mind that more men murder and assault women than women murder men. So the bigger question is: does the murder expose a gendered hostility to servicewomen that has silenced?

Twenty-year-old Gertrude Canning, of Donegal, was a serving Wren (Woman’s Royal Naval Service) at Camp Quebec at No. 1 Combined Training Centre in Inveraray, Argyll, when she was murdered by four shots in 1942.

It's reported that 'Scotland's newly-formed Cold Case Unit could reopen an investigation into the murder...The Crown Office has listed the death... as part of the Unsolved Homicide Database, the result of which may see her case re-examined. A total of around 93 serious crimes are subject to a re-investigation due to advances in forensic technology.'

'Family’s fresh hopes for clues to mystery of Gertrude’s murder', 22.12.2011,
http://www.milngavieherald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/family_s_fresh_hopes_for_clues_to_mystery_of_gertrude_s_murder_1_2017325

Wrens’ founding myth dispelled

Was the initial idea of having ‘a women's navy’ the initiative of a smart feminist – or a pragmatic move by a chap who had no other choice?

At her talk at the British Commission for Maritime History Seminar at Kings College, London, on Thursday Oct 27 Ph.D researcher Hannah Roberts has shed new light on that pivotal moment in the Women’s Royal Naval Service History.

Up till then most people had accepted the story that in March 1917 the enterprising Lady Rocksavage, Sybil Cholmondeley (pic, left), was giving drinks to Sir Eric Geddes, the First Lord of the Admiralty (pic, right). He was worrying about the Navy’s shortage of people (well, men). So many sailors were dead or injured.

‘Why don’t you use women for shore jobs such as driving and typing? The Army does, who not the Navy?’ she asked. Although he was shocked, the idea went ahead, quickly. By November it was agreed: 3,000 service women were to be recruited for this new auxiliary service, the WRNS.

That’s the founding myth – which was surely enjoyed by the suffragette directors of Wrens, Katharine Furse in WW1 and Vera Laughton Mathews in WW2.

But in looking at Geddes’ records Hannah Roberts has found that as early as 1915 he was recognising that the war could only be won if women were recruited to do the work of men who were away fighting. His can-do approach - as Director-General of Munition Supply 1915-16, Director of Transportation on staff of C-in-C British Army in France 1916-17,and Director-General of Transportation for all theatres of war 1916-17 - meant he recognised economic necessity. His views on women's emancipation were not the point.

In that case, Lady Rocksavage would have been preaching to the long-converted when she buttonholed him over gin two years later. I like to see myths demolished, but I’m rather sad to see this sparky one go.

--

NB: The King’s seminars open to the public, and take place on Thursdays at 5.15pm. They are held in the Meeting Room of the Department of War Studies, 6th Floor, Old Main Building. The British Commission for Maritime History seminars are organised by Professor John Armstrong and Dr Alan James and are supported by the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, the Society for Nautical Research and the Maritime Information Association. http://www.maritimehistory.org.uk/kings-seminars.htm

Women at sea in Royal Navy: The transition years

Kath Sherit made an interesting presentation about Wrens and their seafaring, at the Institute of Historical Research yesterday (Wed 26 Jan 2011).

The long saga in the 1970s and 80s about whether Wrens could be allowed to go sea in Britain's defensive navy is a tangled tale. Using official reports and participants' revelations, Sherit has created a clear summary of what was going on. It's part of her Ph.D.

One of the key reasons women were finally allowed into men's hallowed vessels is that there simply were not enough men - competent men - to do the job.

The picture above is one I tinted from a photo. Although it's a Wren (a Boarding Officer) from an earlier period, it is a really good illustration of the way men possessed the high ground - and the way women were positioned as interlopers.

Because I know about women in the Merchant Navy Kath asked me later why sea service had lost its appeal in the 1970s and 80s. I don't think it did in the Merchant Navy,in relation to women - but I have found no stats to prove it. It would be great if someone working in personnel in shipping offices at that time could send me some information.

My hunch is that throughout the 1970s and 80s, opportunistic women landlubbers continued to be attracted to the sea. They were interested both in:
# the newly-opened up 'men's jobs' like electrician following the two 1975 equality laws
# the glam newish jobs like croupier, beautician, and ship's photographer.

I sense that in the 1970s and 80s the MN and RN attracted very different sorts of women. The Merchant Navy drew adventurers who wanted to be at sea for a while and didn't necessarily have a sense of vocation or national commitment.

By contrast the Wrens probably attracted women who wanted to be in institutional settings, women who'd been in sea cadets or had family in the forces etc and were looking for a solid career, maybe in defence.

The Greenham Common effect meant that in the 1980s very many lively women (potential seafaring material) were peaceniks opposing Trident, and eschewing the military-industrial complex. Belonging to the Royal Navy would not have made such women popular in some circles - let alone enviable, as they sometimes are today.

On the equal opportunities front these days, the Royal Navy is a much better employer. It has really good anti-harassment policies and practices. But Merchant Navy women are captaining bigger ships.

Women's steep route onto "men's" ships

I've just found the best image yet that illustrates women's struggle to get into that bastion, naval ships. Maybe an artist's version will work as the cover for my new book on women on the wartime seas.

This is an Imperial War Museum b&w photo. I found it last week in their photo archive. This archive was such a rich source that I wished I'd used it before researching any of the word-based data for the book.

That's because photos - of course - are better than a thousand words. The images I saw tell so many important and hidden stories. They include
~ women cheerily cooped up cleaning out ships' boilers in WW1 (unions banned this in the next war)
~ a continuity 'girl' who was in a submarine for 8 weeks while filming in WW2 (despite all claims that women were never on submarines in wartime).

I've tinted this photocopy to draw out the symbolic significance of the woman and the steep rope ladder she's having to climb. And the chaps are deliberately greyed out.

The Wren is not only having to do a tricky feat in the ridiculously inappropriate clothes she was required to wear.

She's also rising to make her way though the denizens of that institution, the ship. Their exclusivity is conveyed through jeering and hostile faces far above her.

Yes, it's historic. The un-named Wren was a Boarding officer in WW2, and today's Navy has good equal opps policies.

But what a useful illustration of the gender hostility at sea that so many women have had to combat.

Requiem for a Wren, summarised

WW2 Wrens appeared a fair bit in fiction at the time, but there are one or two novels which have rightly beome classics. Here's an extract from Angela Hickman's blog, about Requiem for a Wren.

'...most of [Neville]Shute's [war] novels ... feature a narrator/side character in the present, a section of reminiscing about the war and then a return to the story's present, in which the consequences of the memories unfold. Shute used that structure in ... in Requiem for a Wren.

It should also be said that Shute is a bit of a romantic. And in Requiem for a Wren he serves up two love stories: one that is beautiful and complete, though short-lived, and another which is enduring and unrequited. Those stories, about two brothers in love with the same woman (although not in a jealous, competitive way) overlay the larger story about WWII and its often undocumented affects on the psyche.

So, the story goes like this. Alan Duncan, an Australian who fought in the air force during the war and lost both his feet in a crash, only to subsequently become a lawyer, returns home to his family's sheep ranch. (Shute is as much a fan of Australian vistas as I am, it would seem). Alan hasn't been home for a long time, so he's surprised that his father is a little down when he picks him up at the airport. It turns out that his parents' housekeeper – and English woman named Jessie Proctor – of whom is mother was especially fond, just committed suicide.

As it turns out, the suicide is quite recent and the body is still in the house. Alan, quite curious about the whole thing – especially because she didn't leave much in way of explanation – goes searching for her personal papers, which he feels certain she must have cached somewhere in little suitcase the suicide attempt failed. Well, he finds them. But they are not what he expects.

Jessie Proctor is really Janet Prentice, his dead brother's fiancee, who he has been searching for. He discovers this, not by looking at the body, but by reading the diaries and letters she left in the case. The documents chronicle Janet's time during the war and her relationship with Bill, Alan's brother. In England, Janet fought as a Royal Navy Wren – a female gunner who shot at enemy aircraft. She was quite accomplished at her job, which was good for England but left her with a horrible guilt she felt the need to atone for. After the war, after Bill died, Janet set off to find Alan. She travelled to Australia, where instead of finding him she found his ailing mother. Janet decided a life of service to her dead fiancee's parents would perhaps help her repay her debt, so she changed her name and stayed on at the ranch.

Without going into all the details, I will just say that the picture Shute paints of female service during the war is a really interesting one. There aren't a lot of mainstream portrayals of what it was like to fight as a woman (especially written by a man) and Shute brings a lot more to the realities of Janet's service than an endless swirl of suitors and parties. Make no mistake, Janet and her Wrens were fighters and, Shute seems to say, there is nothing particularly glamourous about that life, despite the fact that she managed to fit in a little romance.

As I said above, Shute's narrative style follows a bit of a pattern. But, by layering his story he draws you in to one part, then throw you backwards into another one (which ups the stakes in the first one) and then pull you back to the present with a new understanding and let the story unfold. It's almost sneaky, except that he's pretty open about what he's doing. That's what I like about Shute's writing. I mean, yes, it's a little old fashioned and of a certain style, but he makes you really care about his characters and what happens to them: He allows you to understand them – to see them for who and what they are – and let's you judge them as you wish. Not a lot of authors are that brave.

Requiem for a Wren is ultimately a rather sad story, but it is also full of sunny moments and small victories. By the end, you are left rather like Alan is, in love with Janet, unable to have her, but glad you got to know her so well anyway.
(pic shows from Vintage Classics edition)

Angela Hickman's blog at http://booksunderskin.blogspot.com/2010/07/requiem-for-wren.html

Cocaine-smuggling Navy woman in court today.

Scandal about 'Wrens' (yes, they were disbanded ten years ago; women are part of the Royal Navy now, but the term lingers on)is always welcomed by the tabloids.

All the better if there's an added bit of spice about crimes such as smuggling. All the better if (nasty) foreign boyfriends are involved. And perhaps better still if she's 'not one of us'- not a nice white gel - indeed a refugee.

So the red tops will be having a field day later today over Teresa Matos (36) the Angola-born steward, who is in court to be sentenced for smuggling £2m of cocaine on HMS Manchester. She has already pleaded guilty.

I have no time for drug dealers. But I do believe in justice. And this woman is not being treated as simply a naval worker.

Gender and race are playing far too big a part in how the case is being reported, and commented upon by bloggers. And it's appalling that this extraordinary one-off case is being used as yet another attack on refugees and their rights.

For background see today's Daily Mail story; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285028/Navy-wren-smuggled-2m-cocaine-warship-gang-boyfriend-leader.html?ITO=1490, and initial reports of the trial on August 18 2009.