A Petersfield woman will surely be remembered as a lifesaver after nearly carrying an incredible secret to the grave.

Linda Cowley sadly passed away last month at the age of 99 after a remarkable life both home and abroad.

The mother-of-two from Grenehurst Way was a tireless collector for the RNLI, a museum volunteer and a Friend of the Heath.

But “the villager” was also a war hero who played a secret part in the crucial operation to minimise the effect of German sea mines.

The multi-lingual Linda didn’t even tell her daughter until recently about her work in the headquarters of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean fleet at Port Said.

She was forbidden to tell anyone because of its secrecy but the discovery saved trade routes and countless lives at sea.

The young Linda, who was born in Egypt to a Hungarian father and a Turkish mother, found herself working at the Royal Navy alongside an officer called Geoffrey.

The electrical engineer from Warwickshire, who would later become Linda’s husband and Commander Cowley MBE, was closely involved a programme of demagnetising ships.

Royal Navy engineers devised a way to eliminate or reduce the magnetism in steel-hulled ships of the time after a dissecting a mine that luckily washed up the Thames Estuary.

The work was important because the Nazis had developed a sea mine that was triggered by the change in the magnetic field brought about by passing ships.

The couple married in Warwickshire in December 1946 after Geoffrey sent a diamond ring in an envelope to Linda who was still in Egypt at the time, and the rest was history.

And although they never spoke of their work in Port Said the enormity of the operation and the many lives saved is definitely worth shouting about.