A FORMER Pershore woman who described herself as the youngest survivor of the Titanic has died in a Worcester nursing home. She was 92.

Ellen Mary Walker believed that she was conceived on board the ill-fated liner after her parents eloped, although a campaign to prove her father's identity failed and she was never able to have his name added to her birth certificate.

But the story of Henry Morley, a Worcester shopkeeper who fell in love with 19-year-old shop assistant Kate Phillips, was documented in a book about the Titanic and featured in a TV programme some years ago.

The couple, travelling second class as Mr and Mrs Marshall, left England for a new life in America but when the ship sank after hitting an iceberg Mr Morley drowned.

The young Kate found a place in the last lifeboat and nine months later gave birth to a daughter in Worcester.

Mrs Walker, who was known as Betty, married twice and had one son, Robert Farmer.

She maintained an interest in the Titanic throughout her life and pictures of the ship adorned the walls of her room at Red Hill Court Nursing Home in Worcester where she died at the weekend.

"She had a photograph of her father beside her bed and kissed it goodnight every night," said close friend John Hodges whose book Titanic had an introduction written by Mrs Walker.

"She always said she was the youngest survivor of the Titanic," he said.

Mrs Walker lived in London for many years working in the passport office, but after being involved in the discovery of a forged passport belonging to one of the Kray twins, had to be given police protection.

She returned to the Midlands and made her home in St Agatha's Road, Pershore, where friend and former neighbour Ernest Fuller described her as "a lovely lady".

She left the town about six years ago.

Mr Fuller said that Mrs Walker has left money to the RNLI in her will and has asked that her ashes be scattered at sea.

Details of Mrs Walker's funeral had not been confirmed when the Journal went to press.