TRIBUTES have been paid to Dame Felicitas Corrigan, of Stanbrook Abbey, following her death, aged 95.

As Kathleen Corrigan, she entered the Callow End abbey 70 years ago.

Dame Felicitas - English Benedictine nuns have been called 'Dame' since the Middle Ages - was described as exercising "an extraordinary influence through her writings, always lively and penetrating, and force of personality".

Sister Margaret Truran, archivist at the abbey, said Dame Felicitas' visitors and correspondents were wide-ranging, from tabloid newspaper readers to local villagers to novelists, actors, such as Sir Alec Guinness, and poets.

The latter included Siegfried Sassoon, who entrusted her with presenting the spiritual aspect of his poetry, published as Poet's Pilgrimage in 1973.

When the Autumn in Malvern Festival featured Sassoon in 2001, Dame Felicitas gave a typically forthright assessment in a television interview - "he was too egocentric".

Two of her books, In a Great Tradition (1956) and The Nun, the Infidel and the Superman (1985), describe the friendship between Abbess Laurentia McLachlan and George Bernard Shaw, during his annual visits to Malvern. They were the basis for Hugh Whitemore's play The Best of Friends (1988), which ran in the West End, toured in 11 countries and was made into a film.

As well as her writings, she was also noted locally as a superb organ player, a reputation gained over 57 years.