Fundraiser and golf lover Brenda Abbott from Atworth died after suffering a heart attack and stroke while on holiday in Portugal.

Mrs Abbott, 77, a past captain of Kingsdown Golf Club in Corsham, was on a golf trip with women friends when she was taken ill shortly after completing a round.

She died eight weeks later on November 26 in a Portuguese hospital.

Her daughter Amanda Stonham-Abbott spoke about the shock Mrs Abbott’s sudden illness had caused to her father John, brother John and herself. She said: “She was always very fit and active and loved going on golf holidays with the girls. When she was taken ill it came as a terrible shock to us all. She was a fantastic mum.”

Mrs Abbott, who grew up in Box, had been married to John, 78, for 57 years despite family members warning their relationship would not last when they first met. The couple married when she was just 19.

Mrs Stonham-Abbott said: “My dad came from a council house in Melksham and we used to joke that he had married the posh girl from Box.”

The couple married at St Thomas a Becket Church in Box and it is there where the memorial service is set to be held next Thursday at 12.30pm. It will be followed by a wake at Kingsdown Golf Club.

Mrs Abbott was a huge supporter of Dorothy House hospice at Winsley and over the years raised more than £300,000 for the charity with the help of friend Ann Pierce.

Mrs Abbott was moved to start fundraising after the death of her sister Margaret Smith, who died from cancer aged just 38. Mrs Stonham-Abbott said: “They organised lots of different events and the golf club members also became very involved.

“She thought Dorothy House did a wonderful job.”

Mrs Abbott, who was very proud of her family’s Welsh roots, was educated at Cannings College in Bath. Later she worked for a number of years for the NHS before she and her husband set up a guest house in Melksham.

She and Mr Abbott, a former train driver based in Westbury, ran Long Hope guest house for nine years in the 1980s.