How will you celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in Ilfracombe?

Let's spell it out to the the feeble who inhabit Ilfracombe and humble we should be:

In 1944, at the age of 23, she was sent to an aircraft base in France to work as a wireless operator with the cover name Mademoiselle du Tort.
Miss Nearne, who spoke fluent French, was later caught using her radio set and taken into custody by the Gestapo who tortured her for information.

Despite the abuse, they were unable to break her and she convinced them she was just a 'little shop girl' who knew nothing of undercover war operations.
She was released but captured again by the Germans, this time managing to escape from a labour camp with two fellow prisoners.
They were later arrested by the SS but were set free after Eileen again used her language skills to convince the captors they were innocent.
'SET EUROPE ABLAZE': AGENTS WHO TOOK NAZIS ON BEHIND ENEMY LINES
Actress Virginia McKenna as an SOE agent in Carve Her Name With Pride

The Special Operations Executive was formed after France fell to the Nazis in 1940. Churchill told the man tasked with founding the new organisation to 'set Europe ablaze'.

The SOE was given an office off Baker Street in central London and recruitment began.

Their mission was sabotage and helping resistance movements behind enemy lines.

In April 1942, Churchill approved plans for women in the SOE to be sent into Europe. They were used as couriers and wireless operators.

Pearl Witherington was the only woman to become a circuit leader when she took over the Wrestler Network in France after the arrest of Maurice Southgate in May 1944.

She organised over 1,500 members of the Maquis and they played an important role fighting the German Army during the D-Day landings.

She was awarded the MBE for her services during the war but became a recluse in later life and was found dead of natural causes on September 2.
Her wartime adventures recall the plot of the 1958 film Carve Her Name With Pride, based on the true story of bilingual agent Violette Szabo, played by Virginia McKenna, who spied for the British government in Nazi-occupied France.
They also echo the exploits of Charlotte Gray, the eponymous heroine of Sebastian Faulks' 1999 novel, which was subsequently turned into a film starring Cate Blanchett.
Local residents say they had no idea they were living next door to a war hero.
Neighbour Steven Cook said: 'She was very reclusive. I was very surprised at the extent of her heroism. You would never have thought it, as she never spoke of it.
'I just want everyone to know what she had done in her past.'
She was the youngest of three children and her older sister, Jacqueline, and brother, Francis, also became SOE operatives.
In 1923 the family moved to France but when the country fell she made her way to England with her sister, through Portugal and Gibraltar.

On her arrival she was offered service in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force working on barrage balloons.
But she turned the job down and was recruited by the SOE from which she was commissioned in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.
Her early SOE experiences came while working at listening stations in Britain where messages to and from agents were sent and received.
On March 2, 1944, she was flown by Lysander aircraft to a field near Les Lagnys in France to work as a wireless operator for the Wizard network as part of Operation Mitchel.
Her cover story was that she was Mademoiselle du Tort - although she also used the aliases Jacqueline Duterte and Alice Wood.
Four months later she was caught using her radio set but, even after torture, persuaded the Gestapo that she was just a little French girl who was not part of Allied forces.
On August 15 the same year she was caught again and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany and later transferred to a forced labour camp in Silesia, on the German border.
Eileen befriended two French girls and on April 13, 1945, the three of them escaped from the forced labour gang they were working in.

Lads and lasses, please note a lady worthy of reverence. Sycophantics get off your knees and commend those who are worthy of commendation:

The daring British Second World War spy who died alone in her flat earlier this month will receive an all-expenses-paid funeral following public outcry that she was to be cremated unmourned.

Eileen Nearne had hardly any visitors to her Torquay home over the past two decades before she was found dead after suffering a heart attack at the age of 89.

It is understood she has no surviving family and no-one was found to pay for her funeral.

Hundreds of well-wishers have today volunteered to donate money so that Miss Nearne could be given a send-off befitting her wartime service.

The members of the public, moved by her heroic tale, inundated the local council asking for details of where her funeral would be taking place and offering money to help pay for it.

But these donations are no longer needed as both the funeral home and crematorium have waived their fees.

Such was the national interest in Miss Nearne's fate that the funeral director has offered to not only pay for the service, but to move it to a larger church to accommodate the members of the public who wish to attend.

The British Royal Legion has confirmed it will place a flag on her coffin.
A spokesperson for Torbay Council said: 'Torbay Council has been contacted by various organisations including the Torbay District & Funeral Service and Westerleigh Group which have offered to fund the funeral arrangements of Eileen Nearne.
'We are currently liasing with the Royal British Legion regarding a protocol for the service so Ms Nearne can be laid to rest with the dignity and respect she deserves.'

The original funeral was due to be held on September 21 but a new date will be now be found.

Dozens of MailOnline readers joined an impromptu campaign by leaving messages expressing their admiration for Miss Nearne - and demanding she receive a 'military funeral with full honours'.



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Patriotic Republicans will not be demeaning themselves by celebrating outmoded institutions. There is no justification for elevating any individual above the rest of mankind/womankind other than by merit. We purport to live in a meritocracy and, indeed, our children are taught that they will succeed solely on merit. It is, therefore, sheer hypocrisy to present to them the model of a hereditary monarch and head of state who has been waited on hand and foot for sixty years and who would not have earned the position of head of state in a competitive and fair environment.