IT WAS with interest that I read in the Argus of Saturday about a service to be held at the grave side of Lucy Jane Saint who was a member of the Queen Mary’s Army Axillary Corps.

Lucy aged 23 died from influenza during WW1 at the time of the Spanish flu pandemic. Lucy’s grave is in St Michael’s church graveyard, Pontymoel and the ceremony will be attended by various Torfaen civic dignitaries and organisations.

However Cwmbran has its own heroine in 26 year old Ethel Maud Lilian Richards, the daughter of William Henry and Maria Richards of 14 Oaklands Terrace, Tycoch, Cwmbran. Ethel enlisted in Cardiff on the March 10 1918 as “member” (equivalent to a Private) in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps and was posted on February 7 1918 to the Artillery and Infantry Operative School in Winchester as a waitress.

The WAAC were then renamed the Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Ethel then transferred to the Women’s Royal Air Force on their formation on April 1 1918. She died on the October 2 1918 probably from the same cause as Lucy, influenza, and is buried in the Shorncliffe military cemetery.

S.McGuire, Mole Close, Newport