A retired nurse who was a guest of honour at the opening of Cromer's new hospital has died aged 94.

Mary Stibbons, known as Molly, was a ward sister and later casualty and then outpatients sister at Cromer Hospital until her retirement in 1981.

An early duty at Cromer Hospital was to help care for coxswain Henry Blogg through his final illness.

Caring for patients was in her blood. Her grandfather who had helped establish the St John Ambulance division in Cromer and a father who was at the other end of the phone whenever an ambulance was called for in the days before the NHS service.

She was a pupil of Cromer Board School, then the Girls' High School at North Walsham, and she helped on the ambulance before beginning a nursing career in London at the beginning of the Second World War, later transferring to Ipswich Hospital.

She returned to Cromer after midwifery service in Edinburgh, In 1978 she was made a Serving Sister of the Order of St John by the Duke of Gloucester.

Mrs Stibbons also helped run the Cromer Wolf Cubs for many years, and sang with Cromer and Sheringham Operatic Society.

She had been a resident at Halsey House, the British Legion care home in Cromer, for the last three and a half years.

Last year she regaled guests at the opening of the new hospital with her many nursing memories - and being a schoolgirl singer at the official opening of the previous building in the 1930s.

A memorial service will be held at Cromer Methodist church at 2.30pm on Wednesday June 3.