TRIBUTES have been paid to a much-loved carer, dinner lady and lollipop lady who spent decades working for a York school.

Great-grandmother Pauline Daniel, 65, from Badger Hill, helped out at Lord Deramore’s Primary School in Heslington for almost 30 years, where she helped run the breakfast and after school clubs.

A well-known face in the Heslington and Badger Hill area, Pauline died suddenly on January 15.

Her son, Robert, said she would have cared for hundreds if not thousands of children during her time at Lord Deramore’s Primary School.

Speaking in tribute, he said: “My mum was a friend to everyone who knew her. She smiled through thick and thin and was a caring person, she spent her life caring, especially for my dad.

“Children from the school thought of her as their own grandmother.

“She was a friendly, caring, loving person.”

Pauline was brought up in Constantine Avenue, Tang Hall, where she lived for all of her childhood.

She met her husband Fred in the Beeswing pub in Hull Road when he sold her a raffle ticket. The couple married in 1972 and had three children, Rosemary, now 37, Robert, 34, and Andrew, 32.

A keen runner, Pauline completed the London Marathon in 1989 in aid of Asthma UK and loved football, regularly watching her children and then grandchildren in football matches for Cliftonville, Heslington Men’s and Rawcliffe.

She cared for Fred, a former plastics engineer, since he suffered a stroke 25 years ago.

Pauline leaves grandchildren Nina, Beth, Sean, David, Jack, Sam and Lucie and great-grandchildren Lilly and Millie.

Sheena Powley, head teacher at Lord Deramore’s, said: “She was an amazing lady. Pauline was one of life’s lovely people who always had time for others. She was often the voice of reason and the person young children would turn to if they needed a bit of tender loving care.”

• A funeral service will be held tomorrow, at St. Paul’s Church, Heslington, at 10am, followed by cremation at York Crematorium at 11am.