Hazel Picking, wartime Wren who relayed signals in Morse code using an Aldis lamp

Yahoo

27-03-2025

Hazel Picking, who has died aged 100, was a visual signaller in the WRNS during the Second World War.
As a Girl Guide, Hazel Roberts (as she was born) had been good at Morse and semaphore, and, coming from a naval family, it was clear during the war that as soon as she became old enough she would join the Women's Royal Naval Service. She spent a few months at Kensington Secretarial School, but in 1943, aged 18, she volunteered, and was trained at the signals training centre, HMS Cabbala, outside Wigan. Her job was to relay Morse-code signals by light through an Aldis lamp.
Her first trained job was in Rosyth dockyard before she was sent to the shore establishment HMS Rosemarkie on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. At a party in the 'Wrennery' on Christmas Night 1943 she met 26-year-old Royal Marines Captain Bernie 'Stormy' Webb. She had first seen him through the lens of her signals telescope and thought him 'the best-looking of a bad-looking bunch'.
When Webb was posted to Fort Gilkicker in Gosport, Hazel Roberts wangled an appointment to HMS Hornet, the nearby base for fast motorboats. Webb, she recalled, would send out scouts from his unit to find out which pub had beer, and there they would meet. If across the harbour, they would often rush to catch the last ferry back, sometimes having to jump on as it was leaving. They married at the end of 1944, when Webb was about to embark for the war in the Pacific.
On the night before D-Day, when Hazel had finished her watch by sending messages in readiness for the fleet's departure, she saw the Solent so full of craft that 'you could have walked all the way to the Isle of Wight without getting wet'. But when she returned the next morning, 'there was not a boat to be seen – just clear blue water.'
On VE-Day she was at the end of the pier at Ryde signal station, unable to join the celebrations, and spent her night on watch sending chatty messages to the few remaining ships in the Solent. She was demobbed at the end of 1945, and Webb returned home in early 1946.
Hazel Mary Roberts was born on January 17 1925 in Poole. She was brought up along the coast in Southampton and educated at the Parents' National Educational Union school there, and later at Christ's Hospital, Hertford.
Her father, Edward Roberts, fought in the battleship Vanguard at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, and an ancestor, 18-year-old midshipman John Aikenhead, was killed in the ship of the line, Royal Sovereign, at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Hazel's first marriage lasted 10 years, after which she supported herself as a medical secretary, working for Linwood Strong opticians, then for the Blood Transfusion Service in Sutton, and at an X-ray unit in nearby Worcester Park as the medical director's secretary.
In 1967 she went to Epsom College as school secretary. On Burns Night 1972 she met Thomas Picking on a blind date: during their marriage they travelled extensively in Europe, South Africa and North America, and they later became volunteers and team leaders at Painshill Park in Surrey, where they undertook a wide range of jobs.
Hazel Picking became a donation governor at Christ's Hospital and presented two pupils to the school. Her husband died in 2009, and she is survived by a son from her first marriage.
Hazel Picking, born January 17 1925, died February 14 2025
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