Catherine Avent, born on 25th November 1919, joined the Women's Royal Naval Service on 29th July 1942. Her entry into the service was facilitated through the university career service, then known as the Oxford University Appointments Committee. While her English degree was considered of "no interest" for wartime service, her ability to prove her educational standards, including having matriculation level maths (O-level equivalent), qualified her as "Commission Worthy", a classification for those with the educational background for officer roles. Catherine herself joked that her birth name was "Catherine" because she was born on St. Catherine's day, and her parents, expecting a boy, hadn't thought of girl's names. She also mentioned that her Oxford contemporaries called her "Thrin" due to another Catherine in her year.

Early service and training (1942-1944)

Catherine's initial training took place at Mill Hill, known as HMS Pembroke 3, where she was part of the very first batch of recruits to train at this location on 29th July 1942. She vividly recalls the raw reality of wartime London during her first night: an air raid alarm at 3 am, followed by the comforting gesture of a cup of tea distributed by a young Third Officer. She thought, "if that's the Navy, that's for me". She learned naval terminology quickly, like referring to sleeping areas as "cabins" and "bunks" instead of "bedrooms" and "beds". She initially volunteered to be an MT driver or a photographer, but there were no vacancies. She was also deemed too short (5'1½") for Bletchley Park, which required recruits to be over 5'2" to handle some of the Enigma machinery.

In August 1942, she was posted to Great Baddow (Marconi's research labs) near Chelmsford. Here, she served as a classifier within Naval Intelligence (DSD9), a role that involved listening to high-speed Morse signals with a DF goniometer to forecast the reflecting power of the ionosphere for long-distance communications (Inter-Services Ionospheric Bureau - ISIB). This technical role, requiring a scientific background she initially lacked, presented a significant challenge for her: "never having done any physics ever suddenly having to learn about the scientific background... that was quite hard actually".

During her time as a classifier, Catherine was involved in an interesting operational problem: she was sent to Scarborough with another Wren, Trixie Bower, to investigate how the BBC's Light Programme (jazz music) was interfering with German E-boat radio telephony (RT) signals that special duties linguists were monitoring. This involved coordinating with the BBC to temporarily shut off relay stations to identify the source of the interference, as they couldn't cut off broadcasts for more than 30 seconds without people calling in.

A moment of "naughtiness" also marked this period: Catherine's mimicry of a superior officer's lisp led to her being given a month being confined to barracks. She was caught when girls sniggered after she mimicked Second Officer Briggs to a Petty Officer, leading to the officer tracing the phone call and confronting Catherine. She proudly noted that she was the "only cadet when I got there to the OTC [Officers Training Course] that was in fact sent there while enduring the punishment of confined to barracks". She attended her OTC at Framewood Manor, Stoke Poges, on 29th April 1944. Her officer training was swift, lasting only about a month. Catherine found OTC "a doddle to somebody like me, you know I’d been a head girl and all those sorts of things, the bossy type, that was quite enjoyable actually".

Officer roles and postings (1944-1947)

Her first posting as an officer was as an acting Third Officer at HMS Flowerdown, a signal station near Winchester. This location was conveniently close to her home, allowing her to visit her parents.

On 20th August 1944, Catherine was posted to the Royal Naval WT Station Bower in Caithness, a remote hamlet between Wick and Thurso, as the officer in charge. This posting was particularly challenging due to its isolation and the basic conditions of the concrete huts where the Wrens worked. Despite having an English degree, she found it funny that despite having very little self-sufficiency or catering experience, she was responsible for catering for 25-30 girls. She humorously recounted her inexperience when a leading Wren cook told her to buy fish. At the fishmonger, when asked if she wanted the fish "fillated," Catherine, unfamiliar with the term, replied, "I beg your pardon?" This led the fishmonger to exclaim to her colleague, "Jamie, Jamie, there’s a wee girl here from the Wrens at Bower, she hadn’t heard of filleting fish!" Catherine never lived it down and knew her reputation as "the Wren officer who had never heard of filleting fish". She was confirmed as a Third Officer on 14th November 1944.

A notable anecdote from Bower involved an older Royal Naval Captain who, during her regular Tuesday reports, would only ask, "Any pregnancies?" Her innocent self was initially baffled until a Petty Officer explained he was simply "frightened of you and your girls." The next time, Catherine, assuming he was deaf, advanced two paces and declared loudly, "I understand Sir, it takes two Sir, and I have thirty wrens and only two Chief Petty Officer mechanics both much married." The Captain, astonished, then became very friendly and they enjoyed their weekly chats. 

After the war in Europe concluded, Catherine transitioned into an Education Officer role, training at HMS Pembroke 3 (HMS Cabala) from 26th July 1945. She subsequently served at HMS Badger in Harwich, before moving to RN Barracks, Chatham, on 11th March 1946. In this capacity, she assisted both naval ratings and Wrens with resettlement into civilian life, helping them with job applications, interviews, acquiring civilian qualifications, and running courses on current affairs (known as ABCA). She noted that education officers were sometimes seen as a "sink into which mavericks were drafted". 

Catherine was full of funny anecdotes and discussed a time at Chatham when she supported a WRNS steward in a meeting with their First Officer. The steward had become pregnant and when asked who the father of her baby was, that "it might have been a solider or a sailor, but he had his hat off, so I don’t know!"

She was promoted to Second Officer on 1st April 1946. Her most enjoyable moment in the WRNS was returning to Great Baddow as an officer and "instituting things that I knew from the lower deck would have improved the working life for the ratings," such as changing watchkeeping schedules to allow for solid blocks of night duty, similar to nurses, which she felt was a genuine contribution.

Discharge and legacy

Catherine was formally discharged from active service with a Class A release on 5th June 1947. She joined the Royal Naval Reserve/Supplementary Reserve in December 1947 and remained a member until its disbandment in 1967.

Following her naval service, Catherine became an assistant lecturer and careers adviser for the Women's Employment Federation, a voluntary body linked to the non-militant suffragette movement. She later ran a careers service for sixth formers in London for 18 years.

Catherine received an OBE in 1977, the Queen's Jubilee year. Her father's reaction to this was famously understated: when she told him, he simply said, "Oh really? Well that was very good," which she felt "cut down to size." Later, he reflected, "You’re the first Avent to appear in one of those honours lists," which she described as being "said as though I had been cited as the co-respondent in a seedy divorce!"

Catherine strongly believed that the WRNS experience provided women with "self-confidence and belief in their capacity", fostering a desire not to be confined to traditional roles. She noted the service's role in shifting societal attitudes, making it more acceptable for women to combine family life with careers. She also mentioned that in her time, "we liked to think we were superior" to other women's services, largely due to the higher educational standards required for entry into the WRNS. She admired figures like Dame Vera Laughton Matthews, the Director of the WRNS, who championed women's capabilities beyond secretarial work, pushing for their training in technical roles. Catherine humorously recalled Dame Vera, a large lady affectionately called "tugboat Annie," trying to sing sea shanties in the naval hospital, producing a sound Catherine likened to "a cow in labour in a farmyard". Catherine also highlighted the moral courage of Mary Pelow, the first Wren officer to receive an MBE, for insisting on naval action based on her unit's intelligence despite initial dismissal from a senior officer.

There is a great video of Catherine being interviewed here