Stalwart volunteer Tessa Holdroyd died on March 8 at the age of 77 after many years of voluntary service in the fields of politics, young people’s development and welfare and the National Health Service.

Mrs Holdroyd was awarded the OBE in 1996 for her volunteer work.

She was born in Clacton on Sea, the daughter of a senior civil servant in the Department of Defence, and after refugee moves from the South-East, the family came to live in London.

She was educated at St Andrew’s and after studying hotel management in Brighton, in 1961 she married Eric Ransom there and had three children , two daughters and a son.

As her children entered their teens she became interested in politics and held office in local associations from 1976 when she divorced her husband. Her interest in the Conservative Party developed and she became a member of the Bow Group, a political think-tank of the Party, which issued research papers.

She remarried in December, 1983 to Julian Holdroyd, a Huddersfield chartered accountant, and now, in the North of England, became even more active in politics, just failing to become the Conservative candidate in the Colne Valley constituency for the 1987 General Election. She was selected for the Morley and Leeds South seat, but was defeated by Labour’s Merlyn Rees.

She later stood in the 1992 Election in the Leeds Central seat, but unsurprisingly did not win the seat as it was a Labour stronghold. She also stood unsuccessfully in the 1990 and 1992 Kirklees Council elections in Golcar.

She became chair of the Yorkshire Area Conservative Women’s Committee in 1993 for three years and an important player in national politics.

In the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s she took up charitable causes where she could put her energy and generosity to immediate practical causes. She played a significant part in the YMCA, being a member of the National Council for five years, as well as Y-Care, the international branch of the YMCA helping 3rd world countries which involved a trip on her own to Armenia, and became a director of Bradford YMCA for several years.

Her energy was tireless and she became involved on a voluntary basis with the National Health Service, becoming a non-executive of the Huddersfield NHS Trust in 1992.

She was appointed a voluntary manager of the South-West Yorkshire Mental Health Trust Review body, a position she finally retired from in the late 2000s.

In the 1990s she became devoted to Linthwaite’s Christ Church, becoming a school governor of the Ardon CE Junior School and in time a churchwarden of the church, eventually taking responsibility for the running of the church for three years in the Interregnum following the death of Father Clayton Coon in December 1996.

A Service of Thanksgiving will be held at the church of St Mary Magdalene at Outlane on March 22 at 11.30am.

She leaves her husband, three children and four grandchildren.