The former headmistress of Dover Girls’ Grammar School, Lillian Kay, died on Tuesday, exactly a month before her 99th birthday.

Miss Kay, who was also the oldest surviving former pupil of the school, passed away in Temple Ewell Nursing Home where she was being cared for.

Born in Dover on July 4 1914, she grew up in the Pier District of the town and went to the Pier Infants School in Archcliffe Road.

Miss Kay went to Holy Trinity School before joining the Dover County School as it was then.

She studied at Bedford College for Women and Cambridge Post Graduate Training College, spent the war years teaching in Nottingham and when the Second World War ended, she applied for a job as maths mistress at the Dover Girls’ Grammar School.

When she arrived in 1946, the senior mathematician was leaving to have a baby, so Miss Kay became senior, running the maths department until 1956.

She was later appointed deputy head and then headmistress of the school until her retirement in 1977.

But she continued to keep in close touch with the school and played a leading role in the Old Girls’ Association.

Miss Kay also used to attend Charlton Church.

Tributes to Miss Kay in tomorow's Dover Mercury.