A PENSIONER has been awarded France’s highest honour for her service during the Second World War.

Anne Ponsonby, 94, of Dower House Nursing Home in Headbourne Worthy, said she was thrilled after being presented with the Legion d’Honneur.

During the war, Anne trained as a wireless operator and supported the Special Operations Executive (SOE) by using Morse code to receive and send messages to the French Resistance. The SOE worked with the French resistance against the Nazi occupiers.

The medal was presented by the Commandant of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), Brigadier Philippa Lorimer MBE.

She said: “Anne, on behalf of the French Government and the people of France, it is our privilege and huge honour to be the people who formally present you with your Legion d’Honneur medal.

“I know that I speak on behalf of all member of the FANY, past and present, and your family and friends when I say that we are enormously proud of the work you did as a young woman in the corps all those years ago.

“I am sure at the time it did not seem that the work you were doing was vital to the liberation of France or the successful outcome of the war, but history tells us otherwise and the work that you and your colleagues did was incredibly important.

“Indeed the sacrifice of your whole generation means that my generation and my children’s generation has grown up in peace and for that we will be eternally grateful.”

Following the presentation, Anne said: “I am thrilled and honoured. It is a beautiful insignia and I will wear it with pride. The war was a testing time for both France and the United Kingdom and together we achieved the liberation of France and set Europe on the road to peace, which we have now enjoyed for over 70 years.

“I am so proud to have played my part in helping the French nation recover its liberty.”

Anne’s children, Belinda Mitchell, John Ponsonby and Emma Parry, added: “Mum has been an enormous inspiration to us all our lives and we are so thrilled that after so many years she is being awarded this most prestigious of medals. We are incredibly proud of her.”

Anne currently has nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.