A globe-trotting librarian who once met the Dalai Lama on her winter trips to India has died aged 77.

Mary Akroyd, of Harden, who worked at Bingley Library for about 20 years until she retired at the age of 60, took trips abroad before the package holiday took off. She went to Italy 23 times.

She took her son Peter, now 44, around Europe when he was a child and she spoke fluent Italian.

Miss Akroyd had a passion for reading, regularly finishing five books a week, and travelled around the Bradford district on the mobile library service.

"She was a real character. She was only 4ft 10ins tall but she had a big presence," said Peter's partner, Maxine Scholefield, of Bingley. "She was confident to travel alone and when she went away she would go to see people she had met before."

Miss Akroyd smoked 40 to 50 cigarettes a day and refused to take medication, preferring her own herbal remedies grown in her garden.

Her funeral will take place at Sacred Heart Church in Bingley tomorrow.