According to her neighbours, Ann Tilbury WAS Wheatsheaf Close.

She lived in this corner of Woking all her life and was by far its longest reigning resident. Indeed, she had photos taken by her father of the house being built in 1932.

But her presence on this unassuming residential road was more than just longevity.

She attended its first street party, held to celebrate the end of the Second World War, and one of its most recent. She was one of the driving forces behind the revival of the street party for the millennium.

This wasn’t held just to celebrate the momentous occasion, but also because she had learnt of the passing of one of its residents after the funeral. She was saddened that no one had attended from the street because they simply hadn't known.

So she felt neighbours needed to know each other better. At the street party she combined her interest in local history and her slight hoarding tendencies to create a history of the road, with photos of old residents and the sales brochures of every house sale which she continued to collect up until the end.

They are now in a scrap book which is often passed around new arrivals to the road. She was in the early stages of compiling a history quiz for the last street party that sadly had to go on without her.

To Horsell she was the woman hassling all the local businesses for prizes for the Scout and Guide May Fayre. She would then get all the visitors to buy raffle tickets from her, and not from the Explorer Scouts, as a part of a silly competition we invented to encourage the Explorers to sell more.

But she played dirty, though, and parked herself in the Beer Tent where Explorers weren't allowed because of their age. All the drinkers couldn't escape before finishing their pints, all done with a Pimm's in her hand that she had probably got someone to buy for her.

And then there was the Garden Safari. She opened up her garden for the occasion and visitors got to see its original WWII bomb shelter, and the artefacts to go with it.

I don't think I can list everything she did for the village. I know I'd miss some but off the top of my head she was one time editor of The Resident Magazine, member of The Horsell Residents Association and part of The Second Thursday Club.

To the people of Woking she was a legendary columnist for the Woking News & Mail, editor and writer of the 'What's on in Woking' magazine.

She was also a member of The Woking History Society and edited their newsletter for a time too. She was a researcher and later actor in the Woking Community Play, founding member of The Lightbox and then later a volunteer and part of the H.G.Wells society, helping keeping his memory alive.

It was at this point in writing this obituary that I foolishly let my sisters read my page so far: "Didn't they have something to do with the statue of Wells in town?" (yes) "Wasn't she also on the committee that chose the Martian statue?" (Quite possibly.) "Didn't she do this? Don't forget to mention her working at Fairoaks."

That was several hours ago and they keep popping up with more suggestions which leads to the last section here.

To her three daughters she was EVERYTHING. And from reading the cards and messages from friends and family and even people we didn't personally know we can see that she was loved and admired around the world.

A career woman who was never afraid to ask for something. As one of our friends put it: "I'm pleased to have not only met her but to have been welcomed into her world, often welcomed enough to be given a job to do.”

Our friends knew where the tea and coffee was kept as she somehow got them making cuppas for her.

But she repaid them with stories and she wouldn't have had them if she hadn't been the slightly cheeky woman asking to do things that mere mortals wouldn't dream of. She went up in an airship from Fairoaks because she saw they were taking important people up and she decided she was important. One simply doesn't get to fly with the Red Arrows (yes she really did!) without asking and possibly batting some eyelashes.

If she really got to know you, my mother would give you cuttings from newspapers that she thought may be of interest to you. All three of us daughters would groan when another mountain of articles were delivered to us, but I know how sad we'll be when we finally get to the bottom of them all.

She had an amazing and varied life, For her 70th birthday she was given a super car driving experience at Thruxton and a ride in a glider over the Solent. This was also the decade she went sky diving with Caroline.

She didn't slow down in her 80s, either.

On her bucket list she’d always wanted to walk from one side of Britain to the other along Hadrian’s Wall – we walked the first half when she was 79 and the last part at 80.

She chose to celebrate her big birthday walking round New York with a pit stop in Canada. Not long after that we also began the walk along the length of the Basingstoke Canal which we started in Up Nately, and finished in Brookwood earlier this year, sadly due to her declining health, she never got to the end.

At 82 and just before Covid hit, mum travelled with family on an amazing trip to New Zealand and the Cook Islands and a slightly less exciting but just as rewarding six week stay in the Netherlands last February to help us with landscaping our garden after an extension.

She would be out there every day smashing up paving stones (in an arty way) with a sledgehammer to build a new garden wall. She'd stop to speak to the neighbours, them in Dutch and her in English, and she would tell me about the conversations they had had over her elevenses consisting of a Baileys infused coffee and a stroop waffle.

The whole time she continued to write her page from our home on a laptop that seemed to not behave for her at all.

When discussing with the editor of this fine newspaper what I was going to do for this very important issue he said if there were any of her columns that we wanted to reproduce we could do that. But where does one begin with over 10 years of articles to go through?

She has saved a copy of every newspaper but I had just a week to go through them all, choose some and write something to accompany them, quite the task. So instead, let me start from the very beginning.

It was a Monday night about ten years ago, I was an assistant Explorer Scout Leader and so I found myself at the Wat Phra Dhammakaya London Buddhist Temple in Knaphill for an evening of meditation and enlightenment. Here I was introduced by one of the other scout leaders to a man by the name of Jon Davies, who was looking for a writer. I put him in contact with mum and this was the beginning of her career as a local celebrity.

I've been told by several people that she was the reason they bought the paper (Sorry WN&M). She wrote her page every week, never missing an issue or deadline.

Although sometimes it felt like a chore to come up with something to write about, it did also encourage her to get out and see and do things, and I'm convinced that doing this page kept her going for as long as she did.

Her three daughters were often quoted in code, I was, for many years, "a reader from Knaphill" and my sisters were often quoted in similar ways.

We would get annoyed sometimes with her urgent pleas for something for her to write about.

“We might as well write the page for her,” we'd grumble among ourselves, but it made us look at things in more detail. I now find myself, as I travel around town looking at things that she would comment on.

The first time I went under Victoria Arch after she passed away I immediately thought that we need to lobby WBC to put the murals back up. Or if they've lost them, somehow then commission a competition for local artists or schools to decorate it in her honour.

Similarly fixing or replacing the drinking water fountains in town and of course leaving those poor dandelions on grass verges alone, although, I am informed by my sister that she didn't feel that way when they crept up in her beloved garden.

To quote what Cllr Ann-Marie Barker wrote in a lovely condolence card to the family: “I will miss her haranguing me on improvements needed in Woking.”

When I first started seeing my now husband it was love at first sight, for Mum that is.

I'd mentioned he was a mechanical engineer, which pleased her as she always wanted her daughters with useful, practical people. But when she saw him in all his six foot six glory her eyes lit up, never would she need to use a step ladder again and she never did change another lightbulb herself.

My brother in law, Ben, found another way to her heart, through her stomach and when she lost her appetite in hospital he would bring her daily meals.

At that point us girls knew we were beaten and that her favourite children were now the boys, the following is from

Ben: “My mother in law Ann had and will always have a special place in my heart.

“Having been an official member of the family for 17 years on this exact date as I write this, what comes to me first as I struggle to think of the right words is how proud she must of been, knowing how amazing her three daughters have become.

“As I mourn the fact that I will never see her again, I realise that actually she will always be here.

“Her headstrong attitude, kindness, intelligence and exceptional wit will forever be heard through the voices of her daughters. Each sister shares Ann’s wonderful characteristics, but also each possesses individually many of her unique and wonderful ways.

“As the family are going about their work in completing Ann’s affairs, it is comforting to know Ann was much loved and admired by so many people who continue to express their sadness in her passing and gratitude in knowing her.

“I had always called my mother in law Ann but I had been slowly working up the courage to say Mum.

“She was a Mum to me and I hope she knew that.

“I will miss her greatly, Farewell Sonic!”