RETIRED teacher, talented artist and amateur archaeologist Hettie Hastings-Kite died at Wimborne’s Victoria Hospital on April 2.

Born in Southend on Sea in 1935, Hettie suffered the trauma of evacuation in 1939, which never left her. She won a scholarship at nearby Westcliff High School for Girls and was well read, well travelled and tried to learn a new skill every year.

Hettie earned her living as a school teacher and also taught swimming and synchronised swimming to hundreds of children in her home county of Essex.

An avid gardener, advanced sub aqua diver and gifted knitter, Hettie used her talents for charity whenever possible.

Her very deep spiritual faith sustained her through the rigours of cancer and she fought the disease with every fibre of her being.

A loving mother to Julian, Hettie met her husband Gordon while working in London. She was a technophobe who acknowledged her shortcomings with wry humour, as electronic gadgets failed her one after another.

At the age of 49, Hettie took up sub aqua diving and moved to Malta for a year after Gordon’s death.

She had many adventures there, including being wined and dined by the last remaining member of the notorious Messina gang and teaching the island’s chief of police to dive and thwart drug dealers leaving contraband on the sea bottom.

In 1997 Hettie, who was fascinated by the tales of Marco Polo, decided she would like to follow the Silk Route.

Two years later she moved to be with her sister Marian Hastings in Dorset and was diagnosed the same year with cancer. Undeterred, she decided to live life to the full, surviving operations and treatment. When her cancer came back eight years later Hettie embarked on another adventure, visiting Antarctica, between chemotherapy sessions. Later she fulfilled her ambition of visiting Russia.

Hettie was an enthusiastic member of the All-Aboard Twenty 4 Art group, which raises funds for charity, as well as a supporter of the Salvation Army and the British Red Cross.

Having been briefly involved with teaching special needs children, Hettie greatly appreciated the talent and aims of Charity Folk led by the late Graeme Hunt, which raised funds for Langside School. A unique individual with a very unusual mind, Hettie will be sadly missed. Her colourful life was celebrated at St Wolfrida’s Church, Horton, on April 17.

Hettie’s link with Horton was her ancestor Sir Richard Hastings of Lutterworth, who was cousin of the Hon Henry Hastings of Woodlands.

Henry’s daughter Dorothy married Thomas Tregonwell and their great-grandson was Captain Lewis Tregonwell, who founded Bournemouth.