GRACE Hallam was the first person in Oxfordshire to hear that the First World War was ending.

She was serving as a telephonist with the Royal Flying Corps at Bicester when news of the Armistice came through on the telegraph she was operating.

She dashed to tell the station commander and was promptly put on what she described as “house arrest” to prevent the announcement leaking out.

She later recalled: “The telegram had arrived two days before and I had to be sworn to secrecy not to disclose it before the actual day “On the day, we paraded in Tom Quad at Christ Church and as Big Tom rang out 11 o’clock, the commanding officer announced that the war was over – it was most impressive.”

In 1972, she paid a nostalgic return visit to the base, where she remembered Bristol fighters and Avro bombers during the First World War.

After leaving school, the then Grace Bateson had a sneaking wish to put on a uniform and do something for her country, so she volunteered early in 1918 to join the Royal Flying Corps.

She later confessed: “Actually, I was only 15, which was two years younger than the official starting age. But I suppose I was a big girl and no-one said anything.”

She was posted to work on the telephones, taking messages and weather forecasts at No 2 Group Headquarters based at Merton College.

Later that year, she moved with her colleagues to Norham Gardens, then to a big house off Banbury Road, near the junction with Marston Ferry Road.

She recalled: “In those days, we wore khaki uniforms because we were part of the Army. But we felt we were a bit special, far superior to the other services.”

She left the service in 1922 to train as a nurse.

She spent her 16 years of married life in Salford, Manchester, taught anatomy and personal hygiene at a local college and worked as a driver for the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) during the Second World War.

After her husband died, she returned to Oxford to live with her two sisters, Mollie Bateson and Ivy Perkins, in St Paul’s Crescent, Botley.

She continued to work for what had become the WRVS (the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service), with close links with patients at Cowley Road Hospital and the Spastics Day Centre at the Churchill Hospital.

She also retained her links with the military as secretary of the Oxford branch of the Royal Air Forces’ Association for many years.

She was awarded the MBE in 1976 for her work with the WRVS. After her death in 1990, aged 87, her military medals and other regalia were put on display in a cabinet in the Royal British Legion headquarters at Wolvercote.