A former Wren may have waited almost six decades to see her war medal, but that did not dim the pleasure of finally receiving it in France, where she now lives.

At a ceremony in the Dordogne, Claire Luard (nee Highton) was belatedly presented with her 1939-45 medal by S/M Ken Napier, chairman of the Aquitaine branch, watched by shipmates and friends.

Claire was something of a rarity – a seagoing wartime Wren, who served from October 1943 to June 1946. A number of Wrens and Wren officers served aboard the big liners, such as the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mary, the Aquitania, Mauretania and Regina del Pacifico, mostly sailing from the Tail of the Bank on the Clyde in Scotland.

Claire, a Wren coder, served in the Louis Pasteur, an ex-French liner liberated from Toulon early in the war.

The ship carried up to 10,000 troops, making regular fast, unescorted passages across the Atlantic.

Her crew included Marconi men, Royal Navy gun and signal crews as well as her normal Merchant Navy ship’s company.

Claire recalls sharing a silk-lined stateroom with two other Wrens, with two Wren officers installed next door.

Her first foreign port was Halifax in Nova Scotia, where she had been asked by her father to buy some Angostura bitters. As she was 17, and Nova Scotia wouldn’t sell alcohol to those under 18, she had to declare herself an alcoholic…

She also recalls visiting New York, where she could obtain silk stockings - and ice cream.

She had always wanted to go to sea, and was offered a commission early on, but realised it would take too long, and stayed a Wren, reaching the dizzy heights of L/Wren for three weeks.

However, she was caught one night after hours trying to get back into barracks – her oppo had failed to unlatch the window.

Claire had long, luxuriant black hair in those days, on to her collar, but escaped the wrath of her Third Officer by tying it up with a bootlace and concealing it under a borrowed Tank Corps beret – rather larger than the Wrens’ standard issue headgear.

During her time in the WRNS, she also worked at Derby House in Liverpool with Admiral Max Horton, Commander-in-Chief Western Approaches – Derby House was the building from where the Battle of the Atlantic was directed.

As Claire had never received her medal, a flurry of emails between Ken Napier, her son-in-law Bob Butt (Canadian Legion) and Mrs Warren, of the RN Medals Section in Centurion Building, Gosport, resolved the matter.