PROMINENT West Devon resident Elizabeth Hopson, of Sheepstor, died suddenly on Monday, November 26. She was 80 years-old.
Mrs Hopson was born and grew up in Manchester, but after meeting and marrying Bill, a Londoner, in 1942, they moved to the capital at the end of the war. She worked at first for Rolls Royce and later in the offices of Lyons Corner House in Kensington, but it was the London social life that gradually fired her interest for politics.
Having spent countless holidays in Devon, enjoying long walks over the moors, the Hopsons decided to move down to what had been the old school at Sheepstor.
Mrs Hopson joined the parish council when the local parish meeting amalgamated with Meavy to become Burrator Parish Council and in later years she joined the former Tavistock Rural District Council. She always retained an interest in local affairs and enjoyed being a member of Burrator Parish Council, where she served on the planning, finance and Burrator Beacon committees and was chairman several times.
Mrs Hopson also worked in the rag trade in Plymouth in the 1960s, in national politics as an agent for the Liberal party in the late 1960s/early 1970s, followed by her work in the then RDC, Dartmoor National Committee and many years as a volunteer at Buckland Abbey.
She combined all this with the demands of looking after her two children, Sybil and Stephen. During the 1990s she was instrumental in reviving the historic links between Sheepstor and Sarawak.