The faces of some of those who served “in peril on the sea” in the second world war are still familiar to us from portraits and archive news footage. This means a shared debt to those who served in the Royal Navy can at least be honoured, if not repaid. But many faces and names have been lost to time – especially if they were women.
Now the Royal Museums Greenwich are keen to reclaim one of those missing names. They have recently bought an extraordinary, characterful and rare portrait of a serving Wren – the name, from the acronym for the Women’s Royal Naval Service, then used for female naval personnel working mostly on shore. But the museum curators don’t know who she is. The image, painted in 1945, will go on show in a rehang in the historic Queen’s House and the museum is appealing today to readers who may recognise the face of a grandmother or aunt – or even, conceivably, see their own younger self reflected.
