Sylvia Frazer with her Watton and District Rotary Club trophy. Picture: Ian Burt

She has met the Queen Mother and former Grand National winner Bob Champion through her 24 years as a dedicated Marie Curie Cancer Care fundraiser.

But 92-year-old Sylvia Frazer, from the Watton area, has hung up her daffodil hat and yellow tabard after collecting just over £32,000 for the charity.

Sylvia, who has two daughters, four grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren, first became a volunteer after seeing an advert in the EDP in 1988, a year after her husband George died.

She joined up with her daughter Esme Tyrell, now 67, from Saham Toney, and has collected in the Watton area since then.

“My friends and I would have stalls in Watton and put on fashion shows. It was marvellous. Most of us went to school together,” Sylvia said.

Marie Curie Cancer Care pays for nurses, who provide free care to people with terminal cancer and other terminal illnesses in their homes. The great-great-grandmother has also raised just over £5,300 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society because her grandson, Jeremy Knights, 44, from Hellesdon, has the neurological condition.

Sylvia met the Queen Mother on July 27, 1992, when she opened the Breckland Council offices in Dereham town centre. She also presented former jockey Bob Champion with £850 on August 11, 1991, at the Watton Show for his own charity – the Bob Champion Cancer Trust.

She was also involved in Watton’s first charity shop, when Marie Curie Cancer Care fundraisers could sell second-hand goods in an empty store in the High Street for 16 weeks while it was being sold.

Sylvia added: “I like to have something to do. You get so many good friends and neighbours when you are a fundraiser. They would do anything for me. It is wonderful.”

For more information about Marie Curie Cancer Care, visit www.mariecurie.org.uk

sophie.wyllie@archant.co.uk