DIANA Fawkes of Twyford has died peacefully. She was 103.

Born before the outbreak of the first world war to parents who had met at Oxford University, her early childhood was blighted by war. Her father, Graham Weir, one of the earliest pilots of the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down and captured in 1915. He only returned in 1919, and her two brothers and a sister were born in the next three years. Diana and her sister Anna were educated at Downe House, Newbury, while the brothers both went to Winchester.

As an athletic young woman in the 1930s, Diana wanted to learn German and to pursue her passion for ski racing. She drove herself in an Austin 7 to Bavaria and Austria, and was selected to train for the British Ladies' Olympic ski team, (a Games scuppered by the outbreak of war). Meanwhile, having qualified as a bilingual secretary, she was recruited in 1938 to be secretary and assistant to Dilly Knox, the famous head cryptographer of GC&CS (the forerunner of GCHQ) and found herself among the first code breakers to move into Bletchley Park, where her knowledge of German was put to good use.

In 1942 she married Rev George Fawkes, a Royal Naval chaplain, who, after a distinguished naval career retired to become the Rector of Compton; and so Diana returned to Hampshire. Having immersed herself in parish life for 15 years, they retired in 1973 to Hunters Hill in Twyford.

Keen to keep up her German, Diana joined the Winchester Cathedral Guild of Voluntary Guides as a German language specialist, and with her customary determination, became an expert on all aspects of the Cathedral’s history and fabric. She was delighted to have ducked the Guides’ normal 75 year retirement policy by never admitting her age - and finally retired aged 94!

Chance discussions with tourists gave her much satisfaction and many interesting connections, including meeting a couple from the same remote village in Austria where she had spent many happy months back in 1936.

She was a committed member of the congregation of St Mary’s Twyford and managed to attend services until aged 100, when failing mobility and eyesight meant a move to Brendon Care’s Old Parsonage, Otterbourne. There in 2015 her connection to Bletchley Park surfaced again, and their oral history officer came to interview her and present her with the Bletchley medal, and both the BBC and ITV made broadcasts about her.

Diana is survived by her sister Anna, daughter Caroline, son Nigel, four grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

A memorial service will take place in Compton Church at 2pm on Friday April 21.