DALES historian Elsie Thompson has died, aged 85.

Mrs Thompson was a familiar figure in Reeth and at Richmond, where she lived for nearly 20 years and where she was deputy registrar until the age of 70.

She was born at Reeth, on November 11, 1917, the only child of John Roland and Mary Horn. Her father died when she was a year old and she and her mother moved in with her grandparents in Silver Street. Eight years later, the family moved to Arkle Terrace.

Mrs Thompson, who attended Reeth School, married her husband Raymond, at Grinton Church in 1941 and the couple lived with her mother.

She worked at the food office in the village during the Second World War and, after it closed, at its Richmond premises. She then worked part-time for the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, in Newbiggin, Richmond.

When her mother died, Mrs Thompson's husband built a new home opposite Arkle Terrace, called Carbery. He died shortly after the couple moved there and Mrs Thompson moved to Richmond.

Following the closure of the pensions office, she became deputy registrar, a post she held until 15 years ago. She worked on the census in Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, and her local knowledge proved invaluable.

She also applied that knowledge and her interest in local history when, about four years ago, she wrote a history of Reeth between 1850 and 1950, called Those Hundred Yesteryears.

She enjoyed travel and holidays with the help of neighbours and, in spite of broken bones, operations and arthritis, lived in her own home until 2001.

Mrs Thompson then moved to the Terrace nursing home and then to Morris Grange nursing home, near Middleton Tyas, where she died last Friday.

A funeral service was held at St Andrew's Church, Grinton, followed by burial at Grinton cemetery.