CONTACT

Wellington Museum and Local History Society held its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 28 March 2024, where it reported on activities for the year ending 31 December 2023. The minutes of the previous AGM were agreed and reports were received from the chairman, treasurer, curator and chief steward.

Officers for the coming year are Chairman Mark Lithgow, Vice-Chairman Paddy Gray, Treasurer Mike Perry and Secretary Gillian Taylor. The remainder of the Committee consists of John Hamer, Carole Moore, Colin Spackman, and Pat Dillon.

There are currently four vacancies on the committee. There is also a need for further volunteers to act as stewards when the museum is open.

Following the AGM, Amyas Crump gave a talk on ‘Odette: a love of the Blackdown Hills’. Odette Hallowes was the first woman to be awarded the George Cross (the highest award that can be given for bravery) and is known to many as a wartime heroine. Odette was born in 1912 in Amiens, France, and spent a lot of her childhood exploring the nearby coastline, something that would become very useful during the 2nd World War.

In 1932 she married an Englishman and moved to the UK and by the outbreak of war in 1939 she had three daughters. As the war progressed, Odette took the decision to move out of London. Her mother-in-law had a guest house in Whiteball but because it was full, rooms were secured at Hillview in nearby Red Ball. Her children went to school in Burlescombe. Odette really took in the place and its people and wished she could dedicate her life to them.

In 1942, after a period of training in the Scottish Highlands, North West England and the South Coast, Odette was recruited to work in occupied France as a Special Operations (SOE) Agent, infiltrating and working with groups of resistance in France. She joined Captain Peter Churchill initially in the south of France and then in Annecy. In 1943, Odette and Churchill were betrayed and arrested.

Odette endured brutal interrogations and torture for information on her work and her fellow agents, but she steadfastly refused to say anything. After a period in prison in Paris, she was taken to a concentration camp in Northern Germany, where she remained until its liberation at the end of the War.

She returned to England on VE Day. Following her two years of captivity, becoming emaciated and ill, her daughters initially didn’t recognise her. She recuperated at a cottage in Whiteball and subsequently married Peter Churchill, but the marriage didn’t last. She married again and immersed herself in forces charitable work, later moving to London and Surrey and living to the age of 83.