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Second World War veteran celebrates 100th birthday at navy reception
4 February 2025
When 100-year-old Sybil Parker looks back on her long and eventful life, one job stands out – serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service.
It was at the height of the Second World War when 17-year-old Sybil saw a poster advertising the WRNS which read ‘Join the Wrens and free a man for the Fleet’.
The teenager thought to herself, “that’s what I’ll do”, and shortly after she was working on the staff of the Commander-in Chief, Portsmouth.
She worked at Fort Southwick, an underground complex deep below Portsdown Hill, as a watchkeeper in the Signals Distribution Office.
Her memories of her time as a Wren were told this week as Sybil was welcomed to HMS Excellent, on Whale Island in Portsmouth, as part of her 100th birthday celebrations.
She was joined by loved ones for the occasion where she received a letter on behalf of First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key by Rear Admiral Ivan Finn, Director Acquisitions.
Looking back on her time as a Wren, one loss stands out. Sybil had a Canadian friend called Captain James Morley and watched as the small wooden marker denoting his ship was removed from the map board after being hit by enemy fire.
She found out ten weeks later that he had been killed on D-Day at Juno beach.
“It was a strange time. I made a lot of friends but it was also very sad,” she said. “On one of the toughest days, I remember sitting next to the main signal officer typing up deaths and injuries of people, some of whom I knew.
“I had such a lump in my throat but you couldn’t show any emotion as it was definitely a time of ‘stiff upper lip’. In my break I went off and wept.”
Sybil married Norman Kenneth Parker, who was in the RAF, training to be a pilot. But halfway through he was one of many told they no longer needed pilots and was offered a navigators’ position, which he refused.
Norman ended up as a Bevan Boy down the mines. After the war he became a surveyor and estate agent. He died aged 38 on September 19, 1962 when Sybil was pregnant with their fifth child.
Sybil herself stayed in the Royal Navy until the end of the war and then became a secretary to the Palace of Justice at Nuremburg and often sat in on the trials. She stayed there for three years.
Throughout her life, she had a number of other secretarial rolls at Esso, the NHS and at Southampton Airport with a company that made engine parts for Concorde.
After retiring, with no opportunity to stay on, she did some agency work. The best was standing in for the Lady in Waiting to the Countess of Huntingdon, living in the house with her and taking her for daily walks in the forest which she enjoyed.
She considers her happiest time to be working in the Southwick Tunnels.
Sybil has two daughters and two sons still living and 22 grand and great-grandchildren. She now resides in Hedge End in Hampshire.