TRIBUTES are being paid to a popular and hard-working Valleys volunteer who lost her battle with cancer just before Christmas.

Marjorie Phillips, better known as Sue, died at the age of 61 on December 22 at St Anne's Hospice after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

The great grandmother, from Brynglas Avenue, Pontllanfraith, worked as a warden in OAP complexes for more than 12 years, and for the last six years gave up her spare time volunteering for Cancer Care Line in Blackwood.

The charity helps people who have been diagnosed with cancer to get help and support, and chairwoman Chris White said Mrs Phillips would be "sorely missed."

She said: "Sue was marvellous and would do anything to help. She had a quiet, brave determination and was an example to everyone."

Mrs Phillips helped run the fruit and veg co-operative and had a hand in the annual pantomime.

She decided to help the charity because of her experience of cancer in the 1980s.

She was first diagnosed with cancer in her lower stomach and her womb in 1984 and almost died.

After a hysterectomy she went into remission, but was then diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2006.

Before retiring in 1990, Mrs Phillips was deputy warden at Maesteg sheltered housing complex in Pentwynmawr for five years, then head warden at the Alexandra Court complex in Ynysddu for seven years.

Mrs Phillips's husband Gordon, 66, a retired former ambulance man and bus driver, said she was a "popular and well respected woman", devoted to her three children, ten grandchildren and great grandson.

Mr Phillips praised staff at St Anne's Hospice in Newport, who cared for his wife before she died.

  • A funeral is being held on Monday at St Paul's Church, Newbridge at 11.15am, with the family asking for donations in lieu of flowers to go to St David's Foundation and Cancer Care Line (on 01495 221660).