A woman believed to have been the last surviving veteran in Maidstone of the Woman's Land Army from the Second World War has died.

Margaret Knight of Eling Court will be buried at Holy Cross Church in Bearsted on Thursday at 11am.

Mrs Knight was born Margaret Sturmer in Old Hay, Paddock Wood, though her parents Len and Mary soon moved to Otham. Mrs Knight spent most of her life in Bearsted until moving to the sheltered accommodation at Eling Court, off Cripple Street, 14 years ago.

She was the second eldest of eight children and out-lived all her siblings, despite suffering from a brain tumour at an early age that had required extensive surgery.

One after-effect of her tumour was that she was left with limited short term memory, but her earlier memories, especially her time in the Land Army were vivid and she loved to talk about them.

The Women's Land Army were women volunteers, who went to work on the fields to help with food production replacing the men who had been called away to fight.

The work came naturally to Mrs Knight since she had been brought up on a farm in Bearsted where her father was the farm manager.

She was billeted with a couple in Rosemary Road, Bearsted, whose son Albert was away at the war. When he returned Margaret and Albert fell in love and were married on November 20, 1947 - the same day as The Queen.

After the war, she worked as a line manager for Sharps toffee factory and later as a restaurant waitress, a launderette assistant and a cinema usherette.

She was married to Albert Knight and the couple had two children, Richard and Graham, and two grand-daughters, Alison and Samantha, and three great grand-children - Emily-Jane, Ruby-May and Lilly-Rose.

On the occasion of the couple's 60th wedding anniversary, they were invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.

Sadly Mr Knight pre-deceased her in 2007.

In recent years she suffered ill-health, with a series of strokes. Nevertheless she still enjoyed playing bingo and cards with her neighbours in the Eling Court Day Centre, and also watching horse-racing and quiz programmes on TV.

She broke her hip in a fall in January and never really recovered her health.

She spent the last three months of life in the Kippington Nursing Home in Sevenoaks.

Her neighbour, Ron Powell, knew her well. He said: "She was a good old girl. She would do anything for anyone. It's very, very sad that she's gone."

Tina Kemp had been one of Mrs Knight's carers. She said: "She was my best friend, hero and a true legend.

"She loved going shopping with me to Notcutts and loved her fish and chips - her favourite dinner!

"She was full of life. They broke the mould after they made her."

Mrs Knight died on September 15. She was 92.

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