Memories of the 1935 Llandudno Rose Queen

Mar 14 2008 By Mari Jones

LLANDUDNO’S Rose Queen of 1935 later became a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (Wren) during the war, signalling to the mine sweepers with her Morse code lamp.

Twelve-year-old Nanette Fleet was presented to Dame Margaret George, the wife of David Lloyd George, the former Liberal Prime Minister, whom she remembers as a rather grand figure.

The carnival in those days was a quite a grand occasion in its own right, the floats in the parade took months to create and were intricate in their design.

Nanette, now 85, said: "Memories of the day came flooding back to me on Mothering Sunday as my daughter gave me a beautiful cake with a picture of me as Llandudno’s Rose Queen on it.

"Although it was June, it was unfortunately rather wet but we still had a wonderful day to remember. Four members of my court are still alive and I think they still live in Llandudno.

"I was crowned in Happy Valley, which was a beautiful place in those days with flowers everywhere."

Nanette, whose father was the W J Fleet in Trinity Avenue, attended John Bright’s Grammar School.

"The dress I wore was a beauty, bought at Clare’s department store, where it was displayed afterwards in the window," she said.

"It was a lovely pink French satin gown and after the parade we were taken to Payne’s Majestic Cafe for a lovely tea and I especially recall there was a delicious souffle.

"The carnival really was a huge annual event, my mother and aunt spent months making the pink paper roses that decorated the floats. There was no television and we had far less, so there was more time."

Nanette joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the war when she was 19. She became a visual signaller from 1943-45.

"I would signal from the shore with my Morse lamp to the minesweepers from a small port on the South East coast, when they were sweeping the bay for mines. It was an interesting time and I was happy to be do something for my country. Before I trained to became a visual signaller I was just an ordinary signaller based in Scotland.

"The base was actually where they were training for the invasion of France, there were Polish, American, Canadian as well as British soldiers.

"One of the reasons I joined the Wrens was because my great-grandfather was a sea captain from Porthmadog, and we had seafarers in the family from Anglesey."

After the war Nanette married an Army officer called Bill Fitton, and they went on to have two daughters. Nanette, who is now a widow, is hoping to move to Oxford to be near her daughter Jennifer but says she will always be a Llandudno girl.