POPULAR Witney teacher Margaret Bettesworth has died at the age of 82.

A keen gardener and traveller, Mrs Bettesworth taught at various primary and secondary schools in the town for more than 20 years and was a familiar face to many.

Margaret Anne Crichton Bradshaw was born in Teddington on August 29, 1932, to school teachers Charles and Nellie Bradshaw.

She grew up in Hampton, London, and went to Lady Eleanor Holles School at the age of 11.

After leaving school at 18 she trained as a teacher at St Mary’s College of Education in Cheltenham between 1950 and 1952.

She then moved back to London and got her first teaching job in 1952.

In 1959 the new teacher met Richard Bettesworth at the Royal Albert Hall.

She was working part-time selling tickets and he was attending a concert.

After her lift home never arrived, he offered to take her, and they were married just a year later in 1960.

They had their first daughter, Karen, in 1961.

The following year Mr Bettesworth took an administration job at Oxford University and the family of three moved to Woodlands Road in Witney.

After spending some time caring for her first-born, Mrs Bettesworth went back to teaching and started off with supply work at Henry Box School in 1962.

In 1963 her second daughter, Judith, was born and then a son, Hugh, followed in 1966.

Mrs Bettesworth then took a break from teaching to care for her three children.

While Hugh was a toddler, Mrs Bettesworth set up and ran Wood Green Nursery School with Frances Davis from about 1968-1972, first at the Friends Meeting House in Broad Hill, and later at the Langdale Hall.

She stopped when she got a job at Northmoor Primary School in 1972, and ended up teaching there for eight years.

Described as a “natural teacher” by her son, Mrs Bettesworth also helped run one of the Brownie packs in Witney.

In 1973, the family of five moved just round the corner to Woodstock Road, where Mr and Mrs Bettesworth lived for the rest of their lives.

Mrs Bettesworth retired from teaching at the age of 60 in 1992, the same year as her husband.

After leaving work she looked after her elderly father, who lived with the Bettesworths until he died at the age of 96.

The couple loved travelling and spent a large part of their retirement making their way around the world, visiting places across Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia.

Mrs Bettesworth continued travelling after her husband died in 2006.

In 2010 she visited Botswana in Africa as part of a safari holiday and in April this year she enjoyed a railway tour of Switzerland.

Her other big passion was gardening, and she was working on her prized garden two weeks before her death.

She was also a volunteer at a mobile library in Witney and part of Witney Talking News.

She was a member of the Music Society and Welsh National Opera.

The grandmother died on July 23 after suffering pancreatic cancer for nearly three years.

Only two weeks before she died she had been at the opera with friends.

Mrs Bettesworth leaves her children Karen, Judith and Hugh and her four grandchildren, Amy, 21, Esme, 15, Lucy, 15 and William, 10.

All are welcome to her funeral which is being held at 11.15am on Saturday at Oxford Crematorium, Bayswater Road, Barton.