Nina Armstrong, who successfully campaigned for equal parking rights for carers of people with disabilities, has died aged 86.

Mrs Armstrong was born on April 21, 1921, to First World War fighter pilot Percy Waddilove and his wife Louise, who lived in North Oxford.

A former pupil of Oxford Girls High School, Mrs Armstrong's ambition to study at the Royal College of Music was thwarted by the outbreak of the Second World War.

While serving as a Wren, she met her husband, John, a South African seaman who had volunteered for the Royal Navy.

After the war the couple moved to South Africa but in 1949, having had two children, Angela and Christopher, and expecting their third, Mrs Armstrong's husband was killed in a car crash.

Six months after his birth, her third child Keith contracted polio, and in 1952, Mrs Armstrong returned to England to get medical treatment for him, which meant long sessions at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, formerly the Wingfield Hospital. During that time, Mrs Armstrong became an auxiliary nurse and volunteered for the Red Cross.

In the 1960s, she began a campaign to get improved parking rights for carers, which led to the introduction of the current disabled parking permit system.

Christopher Armstrong said: "That's the kind of woman she was. When she saw an obstacle, she would do something about it."

She later served on the committee of Oxford Mencap, later becoming its honorary president.

Barbara Bird, chairman of Oxford Mencap, said: "She was a dedicated lady who campaigned for the rights of disabled people for many years."

Mrs Armstrong spent the last weeks of her life at the Beechcroft Nursing Home in Eynsham.