One of Huddersfield’s best-known teachers, Kathleen Morton Smith, has died aged 91.
Kathleen, of Salendine Nook, taught for several decades at Birkby Junior School, first under headteacher Mr Westerby and then under Norman Bonnet.
Generations of children learned the basics of education at her knee.
Blessed with an adventurous spirit she travelled all over the world and for a time taught in Arizona on the teachers’ exchange programme.
Outside of work she was a poodle enthusiast who taught fellow poodle-lovers how to trim their dogs’ fur.
She also enjoyed visits to the races with her sister Audrey and had visited all the racecourses in the UK.
They lived happily together for many years at the family home in Salendine Nook before Audrey’s death more than 20 years ago. She never married.
In recent years she suffered from ill health and was cared for by her close friend and neighbour Leonora Rustamova, a teacher and writer.
Kathleen worked with the Land Army, a British civilian organisation created during the First and Second World Wars so women could work in agriculture, replacing men called up to the military.
Leonora said: “It was somewhere down south. She drove a truck full of girls and was responsible for finding them billets and food, keeping them safe from men and delivering them to the farms where they would work.
“Kathleen was a great inspiration to me. She was an independent woman from an era when that was much harder than it is today.
"She travelled the world and liked to say it is important to live your life to the full, so that when you get to the time when it is just you in your chair, you will have so many things to re-live.
“Kathleen defied the research that suggests single, older women become socially invisible.
“You could put her in a room with anyone and she would lead the conversation.
“Many people thought she was tough – she was! Because she believed you had to be, or people would take advantage. Underneath that, she was the warmest, sweetest, wisest friend I ever had.
“‘Let it be wonderful, Let it be terrible. But let it be uncommon!’ was her favourite philosophy. She used to say it all the time.”
A friend, Margaret Hardy, 74, of Edgerton, said: “I have known Kathleen for more than 45 years. She taught several of my children and they all have fond memories of her.
“She was a no-nonsense woman who had a winning smile and a touch of eccentricity about her.”
Kathleen’s funeral service will be held at Huddersfield Crematorium on November 15 at 11.15am.
