JOY Shepard began her 40-year career as a volunteer for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution as "a result of being in the wrong place at the right time."
Mrs Shepard, from Devizes, had popped into the local WRVS office to see a friend in 1963 and found herself being persuaded to be a volunteer for the RNLI.
Seven years later a committee was formed in Devizes and Mrs Shepard organised collections in and around the town, sold tickets annually during the Couch Lane Festival, was involved in flag weeks and flag days, supermarket collections, coffee mornings and other fundraising activities on behalf of the charity.
Failing health prevented her from picking up her gold badge from HRH the Duke of Kent but instead she received it from Denis Twomey, the RNLI's former area organiser, at the Canal Centre at Devizes Wharf last Wednesday.
Mr Twomey also presented silver badges to Peter Wyre, branch chairman from 1991 to 1999, and Commander Gordon Leary OBE, branch treasurer from 1994-2001.
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