A MEMORAL service will be held today to honour a member of an elite team of codebreakers who changed the course of the Second World War.

Friends and former colleagues of Jean Vivienne Shaw will gather at St Leonard’s Church, Sandhutton, at 11am following her death aged 93 on August 27.

Miss Shaw, who dedicated her life to education in the North-East and North Yorkshire following the war, became a popular member of the community in the village near Thirsk, but despite spending almost 40 years living there, never spoke about her war-time experiences to neighbours.

Some historians have claimed the work of Miss Shaw and the team of codebreakers, who regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers and broke the apparently unbreakable Enigma machine code, shortened the conflict by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain.

Neighbours said Miss Shaw, like many of those recruited to work at Bletchley Park, exuded intelligence.

When she returned to Bletchley Park for a four-day visit five years ago, Miss Shaw said she remembered little about it, despite her efforts being recognised by a certificate and medal from the Government.

She said: “I had been a shorthand typist and when the Army heard that, they said I would be able to listen to Morse Code. They sent me to the Isle of Man to train and I ended up at Bletchley Park.

“We spent 15 hours a day listening to code sent by the Germans and writing it down.”

Miss Shaw volunteered to join the Army as a 17-year-old and is understood to have worked as an intercept operator for Y service.

She spent nearly all the war at Bletchley Park at Winston Churchill’s ‘Listening service’, which had bases which moved all over the world with the theatre of war and had listening stations along the eastern coast of Britain to intercept radio traffic.

Staff at Bletchley Park were expected to work six-day weeks, and had to work when required, including the disliked midnight shift. At the end of a three-week rotation workers went off at 8am and came back at 4pm, meaning 16 hours’ work on the last day.

Miss Shaw said: “We worked so hard, and for so long, that there was not much of a chance to build lasting relationships with the people you worked with.

“We knew what we had to do, and we did it.”

Despite her modesty, Miss Shaw counted her gold medal and certificate, signed by the Queen and then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, among her most treasured possessions.

She said: “I was delighted to receive the medal from the Queen, and the certificate thanking me for what I had done during the war.

“Both are very carefully looked-after. I was proud to wear my medal when I visited Bletchley Park.”

After the war, she spent more than 30 years as a teacher, headteacher and a school inspector in the North-East, before retiring with her lifelong companion Joyce Shiel, in Sandhutton.

She became actively involved in the life of the village, joining the Women’s Institute, Countrywomen’s Guild and serving on the Parochial Church Council for many years.

Margaret Jackson, a friend of Miss Shaw said: “It was apparent that she was very intelligent.

“After being involved with a number of groups in the village, in her last years she lived a quiet life and liked her garden and loved her labrador and boxer dogs.”