CAROL Wright, the popular landlady of a Headington pub for many years, has died, aged 71.

The much-loved mother and grandmother worked for most of her life as a secretary in and around Oxford, before becoming landlady at The Six Bells pub in Beaumont Road, Headington, with her husband Eric.

She was also a passionate reader, leaving her daughter Katie around 3,000 e-books on her Kindle when she died, and also enjoyed arts and crafts, baking and sewing.

Carol Wright was born in Swindon on April 27, 1944, and was adopted as a baby by Mabel and Arthur Exell in Marston.

Mabel was a stay-at-home mother and Arthur worked at Morris Motors car factory, and was heavily involved in the union.

She had two brothers, Dennis who died in 2013, and Donald.

Mrs Wright gained a place at Milham Ford Grammar School in 1955, an unusual achievement at the time for a factory worker’s daughter.

She went on to get five O-Levels.

In 1960 she started at Oxford Technical College in Cowley Road and took a senior secretarial course, achieving an impressive 120 words a minute in shorthand.

While at college, she gained another two O-Levels, in commerce and accountancy.

After finishing her studies in 1961 she started work at Pressed Steel Fisher as a personal secretary to the senior medical officer, working at the factory until 1968.

It was then she had her two daughters, Laura in 1969 and Katie in 1970 with Brian Thrussell, who she married in 1968.

In 1972 she went back to her work, and took up a job with the NHS working as a personal secretary to a plastic surgeon.

Two years later she became the personal assistant to a manager of BT, before moving back to the NHS in 1975.

Mrs Wright split from Mr Thrussell in the late 1970s and went on to be a barmaid at the Six Bells, where she struck up a romance with the landlord Eric Wright.

She married him in 1982 at Wheatley Register Office and became the landlady of the pub, quickly getting to know the regular customers there.

The couple worked there together until 1995, living above the pub.

Mr Wright, who was very popular at the pub, died shortly after they closed it that year, and Mrs Wright went to work as a secretary again at Xerox Printers in 1996.

She retired from work in 2008 to look after her only granddaughter Georgina, now 21, while her mother Katie started a course at university.

Mrs Wright’s greatest passions were reading, sewing, and baking.

Her daughter Katie described her as a “real stay-at-home mum”.

She eventually went to live in a housing association home in Wood Farm, .

The grandmother-of-one died on July 21 after a fight against bowel cancer.

Her funeral is at Oxford Crematorium tomorrow at noon.