Patricia Wermig, nee Brooks, who has died aged 99-and-a-half, must have been among the last of the young women who volunteered for the Women’s Royal Navy to help stop Nazis invading Britain.

Before making her home in Bridport, Patricia was born in Dinas Powys in the Vale of Glamorgan where her naval captain father had married his first officer’s sister.

She moved to Dunmow in rural north Essex, went to grammar school and was living with her aunts, who all went to Girton College.

As soon as the war broke out, Patricia volunteered to join the Wrens and because of her love of doing cryptic crosswords was chosen to be a coder.

While other girls good at crosswords were sent to Bletchley Park to help Alan Turing, Patricia was sent to Chatham where the danger of bombing was great. Patricia, ever good with breaking cryptic messages, was in charge of deciphering messages which had gone a bit wrong (with faulty letters) to work out exactly what was really meant.

After a while she volunteered for a dangerous posting in Egypt. The ship she went on went round the Cape of Good Hope and when it got to Durban she was needed there. This was very lucky for her because as soon as the ship left Durban it was torpedoed and sank, although most of the crew was saved.

Durban turned out to be quite a cushy posting, where the Wrens lived in a hotel. Patricia retained a love of Africa for the rest of her life, reflected in her wishes for after her death. She wants a small school or training workshop in Africa set up in her memory. This can be done via John Humphrey’s Kitchen Table Charities Trust, a charity with no running costs and no volunteers paid which funds small charities and projects with no money spent on swanky offices and expensive advertising. Much of their work is with children - often AIDs orphans in Africa.

On returning to England, Patricia went back to Chatham where after a whirlwind romance, she married naval intelligence officer Denis Wermig, whom she had met briefly as a teenager because he too came from the Dunmow area.

Patricia was to spend many years in a big house which stood alone in a valley full of flowers. Denis and Patricia were only married a fortnight in 1945 when he was posted to Germany for the end of the war and to clear up the horrors of the concentration camps. he stayed there for some time, sharing a flat with Prince Philip and with a great ability for languages. Denis was at some of the Nuremburg trials, including that of Hermann Göring, whom he felt was an even worse man than Hitler.

On return to England Denis went back to his family’s horticulture business and never finished the degree he had started at Uppsala university just as the war began. He did however stay helping naval in a small capacity intelligence all his life, by helping to get dissidents out of communist Eastern bloc countries. Messages were sent with microdots - a text message, normally circular, substantially reduced in size to prevent detection.

It is likely Patricia helped make these, but she certainly made their home a welcome place for people from all parts of the world, some of them refugees.

Patricia had a nanny and maids, but as soon as the youngest of her three children was old enough she began volunteering for and running the British Red Cross in her area. This she did almost full time for 20 years.

In 1983 Patricia moved to west Dorset with her daughter Julia, who had been widowed very young. They had family connections to the area and one of Patricia’s Wren friends was from Bridport. They lived in Walditch, then Bridport.

Soon finding herself a little bored Patricia became involved with the Bridport Antique Centre, which stood on the roundabout at West Allington, where the dentist now is. Here, a couple of days a week, she took her turn selling antiques and was a familiar face to many in the town for the next 20 years until she was in her 80s. She continued to do the Times and Telegraph crossword every day until over 90 - a testament to the value of keeping her brain as active as possible.

As well as wanting a school or training place in Africa in her memory, she also wanted a wood planted up complete with her favourite flowers, bluebells. Anyone interested in planting trees in west Dorset can join ‘Trees for Dorset (treesfordorset.co.uk)

Patricia died in January and a very brief small funeral was held for her in a crematorium. Her wish is to have a memorial service in Walditch church.

Patricia’s daughter Julia said: “Patricia was just one of the many with a story to tell from the Second World War. She thought her life was ordinary, and so did Captain Tom. Those who would like to donate to Patricia’s African school or workshop should send a cheque payable to LCVS Charity Services, 151 Dale Street, Liverpool, LZ 2AH or look at the website but mention ‘Patricia Wermig.’”