A FORMER officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) and teacher of children with special needs in West Oxfordshire has died aged 75.

After leaving school aged 18 in 1957, Elizabeth Hodges joined the WRAF and after training in Wilmslow, Cheshire, was posted to Middle Wallop.

In 1960 she was commissioned and in 1961 spent six months as assistant adjutant at RAF Wartling, in Sussex. Mrs Hodges was then assigned to the code and cipher course at Compton Bassett, Wiltshire.

There she learnt in top secret – not even homework was allowed to be taken outside their compound – and was later posted to the RAF’s communications centre Steamer Point in Aden, a seaport city in Yemen, aged 22. She was placed in charge of three non-commissioned officers, working shifts to watch for code and cipher messages.

Mrs Hodges later recalled: “My most interesting message came in the night and was personal top secret for a governor so only I was permitted to deal with it.

“It was the announcement of Princess Alexandra’s engagement to Angus Ogilvy and the information was not to be disclosed to anyone for about six hours to coincide with an announcement in London. A real secret.”

After Aden, she was posted to the Isle of Man as a junior flight commander at the Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU), in Jurby. But the unit was later moved to RAF Feltwell in Norfolk, where she met her husband Richard. They married in 1966 and had two children, Christopher in 1968 and Sarah in 1971 meaning she had to leave the air force.

She followed her RAF career by going into teaching as a classroom assistant at Gateway Primary School, Carterton from 1976 to 1979, Witney Community Primary School, from 1979 to 1983 and Witney Technical College from 1983 to 1998, also teaching further education to pupils with special needs afterwards.

Her family told The Oxford Mail: “She was a leader and cornerstone of the Hodges family, an enthusiastic and inquisitive traveller, always upbeat, prepared to have a go and great fun to be with and a committed Roman Catholic with a faultless moral compass.”

Elizabeth Kibart was born in Stourport-on-Severn on August 2, 1939, to parents Gladys and Arthur Sidney Kibart, a pharmacist and police officer, respectively.

She had one sister, Ann, who died in 1986 aged 50. Mrs Hodges was a pupil at Alvechurch Village School, in Alvechurch, Worcestershire. She later went to St Paul’s School for Girls, in Birmingham and then the City of Worcester Grammar School for Girls, in Worcester.

She was a talented sportswoman, representing the WRAF at ladies’ tennis. A talented calligrapher, she was appointed honorary president of The Oxford Scribes and was a keen bridge player and fan of cryptic crosswords.

As well as this, she was a committed member of the Parish of Our Lady and St Hugh Catholic Church in Witney, where she led the team of flower arrangers.

Mrs Hodges, of New Yatt Road, Witney, was also the subject of an appeal in our sister paper, The Witney Gazette in July, 2005. A pink Humber Beestol Sports bicycle which she had owned since she was 14 was stolen from outside her home, where it had sat safely for 26 years. She said at the time that when she bought it in 1954 it had cost “£20 4s and 8d, and that included three-speed Sturmey Archer gears, a dynamo, and a clip for my tennis racquet or hockey stick.”

Following the Gazette appeal, the bike was found, a little worse for wear, in Poffley End, near Hailey. It was kept under lock and key afterwards, Mrs Hodges said.

Mr Hodges died in her Witney home on August 16, from metastatic breast cancer. She had been diagnosed in December 2011, but underwent treatment at the Churchill Hospital. Mrs Hodges is survived by her husband Richard, her children Chris and Sarah, and grandchildren, Leo, Sam, Clare and Elsie.

A funeral was held on August 28 and was attended by more than 230 people, at Our Lady and St Hugh Catholic Church, Witney.

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