Tributes to 'bright, clear-minded and courageous' Gladys, 104

Gladys Lawrence passed away recently after spending her final years at St Vincent's residential home. She was born Gladys Gregory in Astley, Lancashire, on July 16 1904, one of a large family who farmed in the area. As a small girl she was sent to the village shop, and remembered seeing on the way a bill stuck to a lamppost announcing the outbreak of the First World War. Her grandson, Clive Lawrence, said she used to laugh at the irony that news of the 1918 Armistice arrived whilst she was in a German lesson at school. Gladys was later trained as a teacher in Manchester. In the late 1920s she married Sydney Lawrence, who was the son of a local pattern maker, training as an accountant with the Local Authority. Gladys's husband later joined the police force as a result of the Depression, and became the youngest Chief Constable ever appointed in England at the time when he became Chief Constable of Reading. Gladys continued to work as a teacher. The couple had one son, Keith, who was born in Salford before Sydney's promotion in 1935. Clive Lawrence said, "My grandmother remembered the Reading years with great affection - amongst its pleasures was the annual task of policing Royal Ascot. "At that time, the wife of a Chief Constable had an extensive role to play in the life of a town: each town had its own police force, which was very much part of local life and local government. "My grandfather and grandmother had a very close marriage, which was also in part a partnership in the public duties my grandfather took on." After the Second World War, Sydney was appointed Chief Constable of Hull, which was emerging out of the aftermath of terrible bombardment. Gladys, a lifelong football fan, regularly watched Hull City play, although the team she truly supported was Manchester United. Clive said, "On one of my final visits to her, late last year, I drew an incredulous response with the information that at that point Hull were six points ahead of United in the Premier League." Sydney served as Commandant of the Police Staff College in Bramshill, Hampshire, before he was appointed HM Inspector of the Constabulary in the 1960s, one of a group of senior officers who toured the country inspecting police forces. It was during this time the couple got to know and love Bexhill, having visited the town during Association of Chief Police Officers' conferences held in the area. In the late 1960s, Gladys and Sydney bought a house near Galley Hill for their retirement, and it was at this time two grandchildren arrived - Michelle, who was born in 1967, and Clive, who was born in 1969. Sydney passed away in 1977, and as they had been so close, the family worried how Gladys would adapt to her husband's death. Clive said, "She showed herself to be as courageous as ever, buying a flat in Grenada on East Parade, and living there independently for more than 20 years until her mid 90s." Gladys spent her final few years in residential care, where she became increasingly frail. Clive said, "Throughout those years, even though becoming quite frail and elderly as can be imagined, Grandma remained bright, clear-minded and cheerful. "When we visited her it was always clear that we were talking to someone who was in some sense a traveller in time: for all her warmth and humour, she retained something of the manner of the Edwardian era she had been born into. "She was a great lady." Gladys also leaves behind a sister, Jessie, aged 100, and two great-grandchildren, Elliott, nine, and Aithne, seven.