A POPULAR Pershore dinner lady who spent 25 years at Abbey Park Middle School has died peacefully at the age of 85.

Mary Collins was born at Malvern View, on Kempsey Common, on March 21, 1930 to Tom and May Minchin.

She was born a twin but, sadly, her brother Alfie Charles, died after just three days.

Mary had a very happy childhood, attending Pirton school as a young child. Her sister, Dorothy was born in 1938 and although there was an eight-year age gap between them, they had many adventures growing up at Malvern View.

She loved animals and helped on her father's smallholding which he ran as well as working as a 'ganger' on the railway.

In her teenage years, Mary was an active cadet and adult member of the Kempsey branch of St John Ambulance Brigade . She attended College House School for girls in Worcester where one of her favourite lessons was learning to play the piano.

After school Mary carried on the family tradition of working on the railway. Although her secret ambition was to be a train announcer, her first job was working in the goods office at Pershore station.

It was here she met her future husband, George, who took her on their first date to watch Worcester City Football Club play, despite Mary hating football.

The couple married and lived in Priest Lane and became devoted parents to daughters, Angela and Shirley. They eventually moved to Newlands, next door to where George grew up, and remained there for the rest of their lives.

She joined the Pershore branch of the Red Cross and changed her job to work in the office at Levers Cattle Foods in. Newlands.

Always active, Mary was a British Legion poppy collector for 30 years and in the l960s and '70s she was involved with the Avon Valley Swimming Pool Association, a group set up to raise funds for the town to build its own pool.

It was in 1970 that she started work as a dinner lady at Pershore Junior School. A year later she went to Pershore High School before returning to Abbey Park Middle School, as it was then known, and stayed for 25 years until her retirement.

She loved meeting “her old children” - when out and about in Pershore and many of these expressed their sorrow about her death on Facebook.

She will also be fondly remembered travelling around Pershore at breakneck speed on her trusted old bicycle, daily making the journey to the bookies to put George’s bets on. Sadly, George died in 2003.

A funeral service was held at Pershore Abbey on Monday to a packed congregation.