A retired missionary is planning on making a final visit to India where she is likely to receive a rapturous welcome after decades of work supporting orphans and poor people.

The visit, planned for her 90th birthday in January next year, will also be Joan Williams’ last overseas trip after a lifetime of service for the Salvation Army.

Joan, 89, of Tavistock, is now retired from the Salvation Army, having given thousands of hospitalised or homeless people care, hope and a new future in the UK and abroad with the local branch.

She is staging a tabletop sale in Tavistock Pannier Market on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (July 24-26), the proceeds of which she will hand over to children’s homes in Calcutta (Kolkata) when she visits to say a fond farewell.

Her trip to India will also be a family occasion because she will be joined by her daughter Janet, son Chris, son-in-law Derek and grandson.

Joan said: “This will be an emotional visit for me. The people I’ve met and helped over the years have become like an extended family. I find it very rewarding carrying out God’s work in a practical way, so people get help directly or I help ensure funds go straight to them.

“I’ve had so much support from my own family, so it’s very appropriate that they come with me on this important trip.”

Over her life dedicated to improving the lives of underprivileged people, she has worked for the army in Burma, Pakistan and India and in Wales and other parts of the country while on a ‘living wage’ providing social work and nursing support and spreading the word of God.

Joan also brought orphan Zoa from India to Tavistock to help him with his English.

Since retiring she has been continuing her good works carrying out visits to India where she is well-known for her interventions in government and other authorities on behalf of the needy.

On her latest visit she will hand over proceeds of her former Salvation Army book sales, directly to providers of post-16 education, which is not available to everyone in India.

She will be visiting an Indian girl she treated as a daughter, called Rupali, who was a baby when her parents were killed at home by their stove exploding.

Rupali came to Joan aged 16: ‘She wanted to become a nurse, but she wasn’t very good at exams which held her back. I took her under my wing and she joined me in many of the mission hospitals to learn. It worked and she is now doing very well in a large kidney hospital in Calcutta. I’m so proud of her.’

She was born into a Salvation Army family and married a member: “I was taught early on that my duty was to God and the people round me. I felt that God’s hand was on me.”

Her early work and experience with the army covered Wales and Liverpool, seeing severe poverty and deprivation and sat with coal miners dying of silicosis. An early memory was sitting on a table in a bomb shelter giving bread crusts to teenagers.