TEACHER, stalwart of Hexham Amateur Stage Society and, above all, a family woman, Aline Watson lived her whole life at the very heart of her community.

The doyenne of amateur dramatics lost her real life battle with leukaemia on May 4, dying at home in the town she’d been born and bred in, just as she wished.

Her husband of 44 years, Alistair, said: “I always said she was related to half of Hexham and she knew the other half.

“She always wanted to pass away here at home and particularly in Hexham.”

The mother of two and grandmother of one was well known across the district as a primary school teacher, having taught at Broomley, Haltwhistle and the Sele First School in Hexham that she herself had attended.

Her daughters and grandson subsequently went there too.

Her parents had been married in Hexham Abbey and so it was only natural that she and Alistair – who met through his mother, the then cook at Broomley First School – should follow suit, in September 1971.

With Alistair, a captain in the Merchant Navy, away at sea for long stretches in the early years of their marriage, Aline had her hands full raising their daughters, Mari and Fiona, and teaching.

She only relinquished the supply teaching she did at the end of her career when Mari’s son, Archie, came along 12 years ago.

Aline and Alistair happily switched to grandparent duties.

The last time Aline (72) left the family home on Hackwood Park was to see a rehearsal of Hexham Amateur Stage Society’s latest offering, the Night at the Movies concert of film favourites, just a few days before she died.

She was first diagnosed with leukaemia in September 2014 and the hope was, after three rounds of aggressive chemotherapy treatment, she would go into remission, but in November medics found the disease had returned.

“The haemotologist said it was a case of months and ‘we’ll try to get you to the concert in May’ – that was the aim,” said Alistair.

“Aline was directing it with Elva Mason, who inevitably took on more and more of the work as Aline started to struggle.

“But on the Saturday before she died, she decided she wanted to go and see the rehearsal. I got her down there and we watched it together and she really enjoyed it.”

Aline died the following Wednesday.

Renowned for the meticulous planning that went into the many productions she directed over the years, she was her typically very organised self right to the end – she had planned her funeral service, written the epitaph for her gravestone and even sorted the death notice for the Courant .

Her daughters and HASS chairman Albert Simpson gave the addresses, while HASS members performed her favourite musical medley, from The Lion King , conducted by long-time HASS musical director Jim Laidlow.

Earlier this year, Albert presented Aline with an award recognising the 50 years of service she had devoted to the stage society.

She and her older sister, Yvonne Roberts, who has been a member of HASS for 58 years, first got involved as members of the then independent Corps de Ballet dance troupe run by John Bell and Margaret Herdman.

In time, the dancers simply became part and parcel of the stage society.

Aline and Yvonne’s father, a Hexham born-and-bred tailor, had a connection with HASS too, making some of the costumes.

By the early 1960s, Aline was a member of the chorus and had begun to pick up some of the minor principal roles. Characters such as Mrs Malloy in Hello Dolly , Grandma Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof and Juno in Orpheus in the Underworld became grist to her mill.

A calamitous event propelled Aline into the director’s chair in 1993 when the guest director of that year’s production, Calamity Jane , broke her leg.

Twenty years later, when she retired as the society’s lead director, she told the Courant : “I was asked to take the next rehearsal and I always say I haven’t stopped taking rehearsals since then.”

Aline continued in the role of ticket secretary, however, responsible for the sale of up to 1,000 tickets for each of the society’s spring and autumn productions at the Queen’s Hall, and helping to balance the books for shows that cost around £16,000 a time to mount.