Obituary: Ruth Hellawell, teacher and artist

Ruth Hellawell, who has died at 74, was a former teacher and the long-serving secretary of Halifax Arthritis Care and a prominent member of Huddersfield Art Society.
Ruth HellawellRuth Hellawell
Ruth Hellawell

Ruth Hellawell, who has died at 74, was a former teacher and the long-serving secretary of Halifax Arthritis Care and a prominent member of Huddersfield Art Society.

Originally from Heptonstall, she was educated at Calder High School and began her career at the Halifax Building Society in 1962. After raising her family, she moved on to a secretarial career which included stints at the National Coal Board and Central Electricity Generating Board.

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A talented artist and photographer, she was also knowledgeable in history, and on reaching 46 she decided to make the most of her talents by commencing a degree course with Bradford University, which she then supplemented with a teaching diploma.

She was 50 when she embarked on her teaching career, which took in the colleges of Bradford and Ilkley, Calderdale and Shipley. She retired at 60, by which time she was a teaching people with learning disabilities, at Calderdale College.

She was widely travelled, having been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and driven as far as Hungary and Poland, to every post-war European capital, in order to appreciate the art, culture and architecture.

She is survived by her husband Philip, whom she married in 1967, son Francis, daughter Juliet and four grandchildren.

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