WELL-KNOWN fundraiser Olwyn Archer has died, aged 90.
Mrs Archer, a keen fundraiser for MENCAP and Haylands Farm, died at Tile House nursing home, Shanklin, where she had lived for four years.
Born Olwyn Outhwaite in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, in 1926, she was the eldest of eight children.
After leaving school, she moved to London and worked as an assistant in a chemist’s shop near Piccadilly Circus.
As the result of meeting an Australian airman, she moved to be with him in Australia but when the relationship fell through she met her future husband on the return voyage.
James Archer was the deputy purser on board and she joked their first meeting was when she sought compensation for a sack of sugar she had bought and which had split open while being loaded at Perth.
After a whirlwind romance, they married shortly after the ship docked in Liverpool in February 1947.
Mrs Archer moved to the Island in 1976 when her husband became the first headteacher at the newly built Medina High School in Newport and for several years she was the manager of Jak’s Beauty Shop in Ryde.
She was proud of her window displays, which regularly won prizes during Ryde Carnival.
Inspired by her son, she became an active fundraiser for MENCAP and was a familiar sight behind the counter of the charity’s shop in Newport.
Through her involvement in the Friends of Haylands Farm, her fundraising and publicity skills helped move the project from a challenging start to the going concern it is today.
Mrs Archer leaves her two sons, Ross and Mark, and two grandchildren.
The funeral will be held at All Saints’ Church, Ryde, on Tuesday, January 31, at noon and afterwards at Yelf’s Hotel.