Josephine Mary Gilbert, of Cockermouth

Last updated at 11:50, Friday, 05 October 2012

FORMER Cockermouth and Maryport teacher Josephine Mary Gilbert has died aged 92.

TEACHER: Josephine Gilbert

Mrs Gilbert was a teacher at St Patrick’s Primary School in Maryport and at Fairfield Primary School in Cockermouth from 1953 to the early 1980s.

She was a keen actress with the Cockermouth Players and Maryport Christian Players and was also a committee member for the National Trust at Wordsworth House.

Mrs Gilbert was born in West Derby, Liverpool, on July 16, 1919 and attended Notre Dame High School. She followed her sister Tess by training at Selly Oak College in Birmingham to become a teacher. She was evacuated from Liverpool, where she was teaching at a primary school, during World War Two to Shropshire and then to Criccieth, North Wales.

She met her future husband Thomas in Criccieth and they were together for 52 years until his death in 1997. They moved to Cockermouth in January 1950 and Mr Gilbert got a job as a maths teacher at Cockermouth Grammar School.

Mrs Gilbert became a teacher at St Patrick’s Primary School in 1953.

She was an accomplished piano player and also liked painting.

She loved climbing fells in the Lake District and regularly attended St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Cockermouth.

Her son Robin said she had a wicked sense of humour and was fiercely independent.

She is survived by her sons Robin and Tim and grandchildren Zoe, Sarah and Helen.

First published at 11:56, Friday, 28 September 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk