A former dinner lady who was described as 'an absolute angel' has made her final journey home.
The ashes of Sylvia Betts were laid to rest in her hometown of Gorleston more than two years after she died in Australia, where she had lived since the 1980s.
A service celebrating her life was held on July 12 at the town's crematorium and the Pier Hotel.
Her children Alison Weatherall and Martin Betts, and their partners Mark and Racheal, were at the ceremony.
Ms Weatherall said: "Quite a few people turned up. It was really a beautiful day. It made it so nice for us to see she was still really loved even though she wasn’t here."
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ms Betts was well-known around Gorleston and Belton as a dinner lady at Breydon Middle School, now Moorlands Primary, and for setting up the First Belton girl guides group.
She was born Sylvia Annison in 1948 in Clippesby, a village in the Broads, to Charles Sidney and Helen Maud Annison.
She went to school in Fleggburgh, Thurne Primary, Repps with Bastwick and Martham County Primary.
She later attended a secretarial college in Great Yarmouth where she studied shorthand, typing and book keeping, before embarking on a varied working life.
Nine years as an auxiliary nurse at the Northgate Hospital followed stints at Pontins and the Samaritans.
In the early 1960s, she married Malcolm, who worked at Birdseye in Great Yarmouth, and they went on to have three children together, Alison who was born in 1965 and Martin who was born in 1970.
Another child, Mark, was born in 1968 but died one year later.
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The family first lived on Gorleston High Street before moving to Orwell Crescent in Belton.
In the 1970s, Ms Betts worked as a dinner lady at Breydon Middle School - and in a scrapbook of photos and memories of her life, she remembered a funny story from those days.
"We had such fun working here," she wrote, recalling the time the head cook locked her and a colleague in the toilets.
"No one could hear our cries for help. Being desperate and being the smallest I had to climb through a tiny window.
"On the way out I got hooked up on the window hook with my knicker elastic and was just hanging by it. It was a while before we were rescued and we never lived it down."
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In 1976, Ms Betts set up the First Belton guides group, raising money for equipment with jumble sales.
Ms Weatherall remembers her mother also used to cut people’s hair if they couldn't afford it themselves.
"She gave so much of herself," her daughter said. "I remember her doing blue rinse and perms in our kitchen. She wasn’t a hairdresser but she was good at it. She never charged them any money. She wanted people to feel good about themselves."
In 1982, the family emigrated to Perth in Western Australia after her husband had been offered a job there. The couple would later divorce but remain friends.
Ms Betts continued working in hospices and care work, where she made many new friends.
In 2019, she was diagnosed with dementia, and three years ago, her family brought her back to Norfolk for what would be the last time before her death. They stayed with Ms Betts' sister Sandra Warnes in Martham.
Ms Weatherall said her mother was her hero.
"She was such a funny character, a bubbly personality. Nothing ever got her down. She was a real battler. She always worked to provide for her family," she said.
Sylvia Betts died on April 3, 2021, at the age of 73-years-old.
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