NORMA Whelan, who organised Wallingford Blues and Beer Festival for 23 years, has died at the age of 60.

Mrs Whelan, above, booked major acts for the festival like Muddy Waters’ son Mud Morganfield, which helped raised £40,000 for local good causes.

She died at the John Radcliffe Hospital on January 15 after living with breast cancer for 10 years.

Norma Matheson was born on February 29, 1952, near Dunfermline, Scotland, and grew up in the village of Limekilns.

After getting a journalism degree from Napier College, Edinburgh, she moved to London.

She got a job at the BBC in the early 1970s, and helped produce The Old Grey Whistle Test where she developed her wide-ranging taste in music.

She also had a part-time job at The Hare in Barnes where she met future husband Mick Whelan, who she married in 1978.

Soon afterwards, the newlyweds started as trainee managers with Fullers’s Brewery, running several successful pubs.

Son John, who was born in 1982, said: “She was always a gentle influence. Sometimes I even listened to her good advice. Hopefully I’m a better person for it.

“The thing that will always stick out in my mind was that no matter how ill she was over the years, she never complained.”

The family moved to Wallingford to take over the Coach and Horses in 1994 which they ran until 1998 when Mr and Mrs Whelan separated.

She joined Oxford Brookes University as an online publications editor until her retirement.

Mrs Whelan had helped organise Wallingford Blues and Beer Festival since its creation in 1990 and was also involved in organising Wallingford Carnival and Wallingford Fun Day.

Her funeral was held at West Berkshire Crematorium on February 1.