Tribute to adventurer Kathleen Pansini (From Craven Herald)

Tribute to adventurer Kathleen Pansini

12:47pm Thursday 31st January 2013 in News

A lifelong adventurer who celebrated her 90th birthday by climbing a mountain has died at the age of 98.

Kathleen Pansini had a thrill-packed life of climbing, hiking, sailing, exploring exotic countries and doing relief work.

As a nurse she was evacuated with the British Army at Dunkirk, then spent the Second World War serving in North Africa.

She also found time to run a chiropody business, qualify as a swimming teacher, volunteer with Meals on Wheels and bring up her daughter alone.

Kathleen was born in 1914 in York and after training as a nurse in Oxford took the “grand tour” of Europe with her father.

She remained adventurous after her retirement, touring the world in the early 1980s, doing the 200-mile Coast to Coast walk at the age of 72, sailing in her 80s and riding a tandem in Scotland at 92.

Kathleen’s daughter Julia said despite suffering ill health in recent years and having to move to Summerfield residential home in Silsden in 2008, her mother continued to get out and about.

Julia said: “She had a wicked sense of humour. Her attitude to life was, it doesn’t matter what gets in the way, you’ll get over it. She was brought up to believe that nothing is impossible.”