In Her Majesty’s Service

“You are going to London, and you are going to work for The Queen.”

With these words, Petty Officer Rosalee Auger (van Stelten) was drafted from HMCS Naden in Esquimalt, BC, to HMCS Niobe in London, England for special duty in Buckingham Palace in connection with the 1959 Royal Tour of Canada.

During the tour she was in the contingent of HMY (Her Majesty’s Yacht) Britannia, sailing from Sept Îsle, Quebec to Thunder Bay, Ontario, the only female ‘Yottie’ in Britannia’s In Her Majesty’s Service –

Rosalee served in the RCN(Wrens) in the 1950s and 60s in HMCS Chippawa, Winnipeg, on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and in Naval Headquarters, Ottawa, Ontario. It was the era of the Cold War: the Korean conflict, the Berlin wall, the Suez invasion, and the Cuban missile crisis.

In HMCS Naden she was first an Engineer Officers’ Writer in HMC Dockyard and later in the Wren Personnel (Regulating) branch at Moresby House on Esquimalt Road and Sturdee Street (where the CFB Esquimalt firehall now stands). She was responsible for the morale, wellbeing and discipline of the Wrens.

She led an eclectic life as a civilian before her retirement in Victoria: secretary, court library clerk, apartment manager, president of a cattle sales and management company, community volunteer, free-lance writer, poet and author.

Rosalee Auger van Stelten died on 30 March  2019.

Rosalee van Stelten was awarded the Canadian Forces Decoration and The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.

In her poem “HMY Brittania, 1959” (printed below), Rosalee van Stelten reflected on the privilege, and the responsibility, of serving the Queen:

HMY Britannia, 1959

The grey St. Lawrence slips
beneath our keel, shrouded in fog.
I walk Britannia’s deck
royal pennant listless at her mast from his slumber,
although The Queen’s aboard.

The Queen’s aboard!
and so am I, flushed with pride
spilling secret glee, soon to sail
lock by lock, sea by inland sea

to Thunder Bay, cradle
of my birth, where I suppress
a shout of jubilation
that would rouse the Sleeping Giant*
from his slumber,
or cause Superior
to thunder her applause

~by Rosalee Auger van Stelten

* Author’s note – The Sleeping Giant of Thunder Bay, Ontario is a rock formation in the shape of a reclining man.