Royal Roads honours women of the Wrens

A rose holds not only a fragrance but plenty of symbolic meaning. The evidence was in the expressions of about a dozen women assembled in the heritage rose garden at Royal Roads University, who served with the Canadian navy during the Second World War. The women, most in their 80s, watched as one of their own grabbed hold of a shovel, dug deep into the soil and turned the earth at the base of a flower. "I feel very strongly about the navy and about my Wrens," said 83-year-old Barbara Duncan who joined the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service, becoming a Wren when she was 18. "I want everyone to know that a Wren isn't just a bird in a tree. We're people too." Three roses planted in the garden on July 14 commemorate Canada's naval centennial and the integral work Wrens did for the war effort. The plantings of the specially-bred flower, called the Navy Lady, have been taking place across the country. This was the sixth planting in Greater Victoria this year.