A DARWEN pensioner who was an undercover agent in occupied Norway during the Second World War has spoken of the secret life she led.

Sigrid Green, 82, known to friends as Gusta because her middle name is Augusta, joined the WAAF in 1942 and was seconded to the Norwegian forces as an undercover agent after military bosses discovered her bilingual background.

She spent three months in occupied Norway, living under the codename Nora, staying with families and moving from house to house to avoid detection.

Gusta, of Richmond Terrace, later returned for a shorter period of time, travelling to and from the country by the famous "ball bearing route", hidden in aeroplanes exporting goods from Swedish steelmakers.

On Gusta's first trip to Norway she travelled in a submarine as she had been unable to learn how to parachute in from a plane because of severe vertigo.

She said: "I was met by two men in a small rowing boat, who had come to take me in to land. I had no idea where I was.

"We went into a fjord and I was met there as well. It was very well organised.

"I stayed with families on the west coast of Norway. I wasn't hidden away or anything, I used to go out to the shops.

"It was important to be careful and I moved around a lot, because that created less danger for the people I was staying with.

"I was lucky it was winter and I wore a uniform under a long coat. That way, if I was caught, I would have to be treated as a Prisoner of War because I had a uniform. Otherwise I could have been thought to be a spy and been shot.

"I also had to be careful about speaking too much in public. My Norwegian has a slight accent which sounds very like the west coast accent, but it could have been picked up.

"The Germans employed local civilians, many of them quislings, traitors, named after a man called Quisling who negotiated the occupation of his country.

"They patrolled the sea every night and we needed to get details of what time they were patrolling so that Russian convoys could get through, and it took a few weeks to find one who was all right, or to get someone put in who could be trusted.

"Then the information had to be passed to London by telegraph. I did most of this because I was trained."

Gusta left the country at night by bicycle and was guided between checkpoints into neutral Sweden. From there she flew out hidden in a plane exporting ball bearings to England.

She returned the following year by the same route, to spend a much shorter period liaising with Norwegian resistance fighters.

Gusta says there are aspects of both her missions she will never reveal. She said: "There are a lot of things about that time which I will never go into.

"They are best left buried. War is a degrading and cruel thing.

"I do have a story to tell, but I don't want anyone to go thinking I'm a hero. There were hundreds of people who did what I did and everyone who lived through the war did things they never thought they could do."