Blanche Flannery

Her father was deeply political and introduced her and her sister, Marie, to political thinking, taking them to political meetings and rallies in the 1930s. In the later part of the decade she joined the Communist Party after a rally in Sheffield.

When her husband, Martin Flannery, was elected as Labour MP for Sheffield Hillsborough in 1974, she worked as his Parliamentary personal assistant for the 18 years that he was in office, and they made a dynamic political duo.

She was born Blanche Howson, in John Street, Sheffield, which was the entrance to Bramall Lane, home of Sheffield United Football Club and for many years host to Yorkshire County Cricket Club. She had a lifelong love of cricket, but her footballing allegiance was to Sheffield Wednesday.

Her mother was an office cleaner for a steel firm, and her father was an unskilled industrial worker who spent much of his life unemployed.

Mrs Flannery attended Duchess Road School where she was head girl and the school's May Queen. She left when she was 14 to work as a telephonist for a local steel company, Cravens, the first of many such firms in the city where she did administrative work.

She also worked for a number of trades unions, including the administrative union, ASTMS, the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers and was a member of the Apex section of the GMB union.

During and after the Second World War, she took up many issues including campaigning for a National Health Service and state nursery facilities for young children.

In the 1960s and 1970s she was involved in campaigns for women's rights in the workplace including for the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts.

As well as being involved in the National Assembly of Women and Women's Liberation marches in the 1970's she campaigned for women's reproductive rights, maternity rights and the rights to health screening tests. She was an active member of the Anti Apartheid Movement and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament long before they became mass political movements, and went on the first CND march to Aldermaston in 1958.

Always active in her trade union branch, Mrs Flannery was also involved in establishing the Women's Sub Committee in the Sheffield Trades Union Council and became its first and only woman president in the 1980s.

She also helped to set up the Sheffield Centre against Unemployment and supported the Connolly Association. She and her husband were involved in the adult educational establishments Wortley Hall, and Northern College, Barnsley, where she continued to be involved in its management until 2009.

She played a crucial role in a number of industrial disputes, but particularly the steel and miners' strikes. She was a great organiser and used her skills to their utmost during the year-long miners' strike of 1984-1985, organising food collections for families and getting people to places like Orgreave, one of the bitterest scenes of protests during the dispute.

She also had a humane and comradely spirit with a great sense of humour.

Although Mrs Flannery retired from paid work in 1992 she continued to be active in politics, attending rallies and political meetings. Despite failing health she insisted in attending the million people march against the Iraq war, in London, in 2003. She could not join in she sat at the entrance to Hyde Park and watched it pass. Her funeral service will be at Grenoside Crematorium, Sheffield, at 11am on Tuesday next week.