FORMER Okehampton magistrate and teacher Ann Harwood died recently in hospital in Okehampton at the age of 72.
Mrs Harwood was born in Canterbury and educated on the Isle of Wight and at Edgehill College during the wartime evacuation.
In 1954 she married Tim Harwood of Ventnor, Isle of Wight, a fellow teacher and in 1955 moved into Church House, Okehampton, where their two sons, Andrew and David, were born.
In 1968 Ann took up the post of remedial teacher at Okehampton County Primary School, where she continued to teach special needs right up to her retirement in 1989.
It was shortly after taking up this position that she became a local magistrate and was picked out especially for this post, making her one of the youngest female magistrates ever to be appointed.
During her 30 years as a JP, Ann was chairman of the juvenile bench for 15 years and spent a similar period as the Okehampton representative on the Devon Probation Committee.
She was honoured in 1999 as a guest of the Queen at a Royal Garden Party.
A life member of Okehampton Rugby Club, she followed their fortunes from the late 1960s right up to the present day, being active in the kitchen, on the committee and was a tireless organiser of the 50/50 shops.
Even in retirement, Ann remained active in the community, working in the Okehampton Liberal Democrat office for three years — a position she found both stimulating and rewarding.
Her son Dave said she always had time for her family and she delighted in the close contact she maintained with him and his brother Andrew, their wives and her three grand-children.
'She was one of life's givers and will be remembered for her wisdom, care and concern by all who knew her,' he said.