British Empire Medal recipient and former town magistrate, Victoria Pryor, has died at the age of 91.

She was born on September 14, 1923, in Bordeaux, France, to Louis-Jean and Ethel Boutaric.

Mrs Pryor was the eldest of two children, with her brother, Fred, born five years after her.

Her father, who had been an electrician working at the docks in Bordeaux, died when she was 14.

Unable to cope with raising two children, her mother sent her to live with relatives in Sittingbourne that year.

Just 18 months after arriving in the UK, the Second World War broke out and she narrowly avoided being uprooted again.

Because she was a French passport holder, British authorities asked her to move away from Sittingbourne as wartime rules said foreigners could not live within 50 miles of the coast.

However, they were persuaded to allow her to stay after she showed them evidence that her grandfather on her mother’s side had been a police superintendent.

Throughout the war, Victoria did first aid in the Air Raid Precautions team before working in civil defence and also held a number of secretarial positions.

On July 1, 1950, she married marketing research manager Alistair Pryor in a Sittingbourne church.

It was in the years after the birth of the couple’s first and only child, Francesca, was born in 1952, that Mrs Pryor began her work in the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS).

She was specifically drawn to working with children and set-up a pioneering project which saw underprivileged children staying temporarily with families in Kent.

In her 50s, Mrs Pryor became a magistrate at the now-closed Sittingbourne courthouse.

In recognition of her extensive work in the voluntary sector, she was later awarded the British Empire Medal in 1978.

She was a avid motorsports fan and, for her 85th birthday, she enjoyed a day out in Brands Hatch Circuit, where she was taken on a number of laps with a professional driver.

Her daughter, Francesca Jaggs, said: “She worked until she was told to retire at 75 and only relinquished her driving licence two years ago.

“I saw her as a multifaceted person, she was strong-willed and independent.

“Overall, she was an admirable woman.”

As well as her daughter, she leaves behind two grandchildren, Roberta and Elisabeth.