Kit Sollitt, steelworker and campaigner

Having been part of an army of women who kept the steel factories running in the 1940s, when the men had gone to fight, she devoted her later life to a campaign to see to it that their efforts would not be forgotten.

Her daughter, Lisa Sollitt-Pass, described her as the embodiment of a Woman of Steel – a “bright, independent, straight-talking woman who never let anyone underestimate her”.

Mrs Sollitt, whose father was a “little mester” and whose mother ran a fish and chip shop, was born in Heeley but lived in Gleadless for most of her life.

She was just 14 when she began work as a French polishing apprentice for Viners, grafting for 12 hours at a time for a weekly wage of just five shillings.

When war broke out she became one of the first to answer the call for women to help keep the foundries churning out essential equipment.

She worked first at Moore and Wright, assembling ratchets for micrometers, before taking up employment as a sandmiller at Hardy Patent Pick on Little London Road.

But when the war ended and the men returned, she found her services surplus to requirements.

However, unlike the many women who would never see the inside of a steel factory again, she returned to work when her children were old enough, and went on to three other foundries for “a man’s pay”.

She wrote two novels based on her family’s experiences in the steelworks and was one of four women who fronted the fundraising campaign for the Women of Steel statue.

Of those, only Kathleen Roberts now survives, with Ruby Gascoigne having died last October, and Dorothy Slingsby the previous year. Both were 95.

Ms Sollitt-Pass said her mother had been “so proud” of the statue and had cherished every moment of the fight to get it made, especially her trip to 10 Downing Street.

She refused to let her advancing years dim her appetite for life. She taught herself to use a computer in her 90s, and was still baby sitting her great-grandchildren a few weeks before she died.

Although she never placed a bet, she would pick the horses each day just to test her knowledge of the racecourse.

She is survived by her four children, 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Her husband, Walt, died in his 70s,