A GRANDMOTHER-OF-THREE who dedicated nearly 80 years of her life to Girl Guiding has died.

Hundreds of people from the Girl Guides Association are expected to come together to say their final goodbyes to Joan Dalton who died aged 87.

Joan was born in Wimbledon and joined the Brownies at eight-years-old in 1937 and performed at concerts which helped raise cash for the Spitfire Fund which aimed to provide The Royal Air Force with more Eastleigh-built fighter planes during the Second World War.

Once she was old enough she joined the Guides, the Guiding Association’s senior group and helped raise money for the Chandlers Ford Girlguiding Centre.

While she was a member she, along with 500 other members, was tasked with helping to sew a special flag in 1946 which was gifted to Guide groups in Jersey that had continued to meet despite restrictions placed on them during Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War.

In 1965 Joan moved to Chandlers Ford and continued her Guiding career with the Second Chandlers Ford Guides.

Since then she has helped raise £7,600 for the Chandlers Ford district headquarters which opened in 1978, and more recently the £270,000 Chandlers Ford Girlguiding Centre in Ramalley and even documented the group’s history in an exhibition of photographs and memorabilia in November 1997 and later a booklet called A Story of Guiding in Chandlers Ford Hampshire 1920-1997.

Among her roles, she has been a young leader advisor, chairman of the County Programme and Training Committee, warrants and registration secretary, treasurer and chairman of the Chandlers Ford Trefoil Guild, the adults’ section of the organisation.

She was later made life vice president of Hampshire West Guide Association.

Paying tribute, Anne Falconer, Hampshire’s county commissioner for the Girlguiding Association said: “Joan was a revered and much respected member of Girlguiding Hampshire West and she will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her.

“We wholeheartedly give thanks for her long service of volunteering and her unfailing dedication and commitment to the organisation she loved and lived for.”

Now hundreds of people from across the organisation will join Joan’s family for a thanksgiving service at Saint Boniface Church in Hursley Road, Chandlers Ford.

The service will start at noon on August 15 and follows a private cremation. Her family have asked for people to donate to Chandlers Ford Guiding rather than bring flowers.

Cheques made payable to The Guide Association can be donated through W G Bush Funeral Directors in Hursley Road, Chandlers Ford.