TRIBUTES have been paid to a former senior teacher who has died at the age of 94.

Mrs Irene Bainbridge was first a pupil and then a teacher at the old Wolsingham Grammar School, which later became one of Durham's first comprehensive schools.

She worked there from the 1930s until 1968, when she retired as senior mistress.

Mrs Bainbridge moved to Stanhope when she was five with her parents, Thomas and Amy Potts, and her late brother and sister, also called Thomas and Amy.

Her father was an engineer in the Merchant Navy until his death in a tragic engine room accident.

Mrs Bainbridge excelled academically and studied at St Mary's University, in Durham, before taking up a teaching post at Seaham and then moving to Wolsingham to teach English.

Her husband, William Lee Bainbridge, was headteacher at Stanhope Barrington Primary School and they shared a home in the village.

Mrs Bainbridge also had a keen interest in amateur dramatics and the church.

She started a drama society in Stanhope and later the Phoenix Players and the Theatre Club.

She was also secretary of the parochial church council and was instrumental in opening the church hall in the village's former rectory.

A former pupil who later became a teaching colleague, Charlie Donaghy, now chairman of governors at Wolsingham School and Community College, said: "She was a very, very good English teacher who was well organised and stern, but always fair."

A funeral service was held at Durham Crematorium.