A very sad day indeed, she was a truly lovely person.
It always improved my day whenever I was fortunate enough to meet her during the challenge or at a re-union.

If my recollections are correct she inevitably carried two lists.
The list of challenge starters on which she religiously ticked off your name and number when meeting you for first time that year.
The other was a list of the birds she had spotted on her crossing.

Just to set the record straight Mick, Mildred did four crossings during the eighties (86,87, 88 & 89)making her in my eyes one of "The Early Birds". A further five in the nineties including her tenth 1998 and her final two in 2000 & 2004.

My condolences to her family and friends.

Ian

I met with Mildred in 2004 and had a very wonderful conversation. I professed to be entirely unable to identify birds, and she gently showed me that I had far more knowledge than I'd ever have imagined. As a family we are blessed, and, as a family, we are both saddened by our loss and welcome the joy brought to us by mighty souls.

When I was told that Mildred had died I was shocked. She was one of those who helped me on my first challenge in 1988, and we had kept occasionally in touch. When we last met she was giving a slideshow about a visit to Hudson Bay. I remember her grousing about heather-bashing and I have a picture of her precariously balancing on a rock in the middle of a stream. And of course there was "the night she slept with the vicar".

David 1/2 twintower