FAMILY and friends have remembered a public-spirited York Conservative supporter, who has died aged 87.

Eileen Wood, formerly of Hamilton Drive, York, was the chairwoman of York Conservative Association, a member of the European Union of Women, treasurer of the luncheon club and a governor at St Paul’s Primary School and Nursery and Poppleton Road Primary School.

Her son, Philip Wood, said she was extremely well organised. She used to set the clocks in the house ten minutes fast and hoarded paperwork, keeping a track of everything, such as minutes from meetings of the Conservative Association going back to the 1920s.

He said he did not know the extent of his mother’s activities until he started sorting through her paperwork and found that when she was only 16 she set up her own little school for local children in Sunderland, shortly before the war.

“She always involved herself in committees, whether they liked it or not,” he said. “She was a public-spirited person.”

She was once invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in recognition of her political and social contribution, he said.

Mrs Wood, was born in Sunderland and moved to York in 1964 with her late husband, Jim, who worked on the railways.

Philip said she loved her family, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and was a sports fan who used to enjoy watching Wimbledon and Sunderland Football Club. She also loved travelling.