A life-long campaigner and social activist will have a woodland burial in Bradford on Monday.

Moira Symons, who died at the age of 90, was a Methodist preacher throughout her life, preaching at Trinity Methodist Church in Bradford until she was well into her 80s.

And after moving to the city when she was 79, she became involved with Girling-ton/Heaton and Manningham Council of Churches and was a member of its community relations group.

Mrs Symons, who was taught by the playwright Samuel Beckett, also took on the role of governor at St Barnabas CofE Primary School in Heaton and was an active member of Heaton Ward Labour Party.

After the tragedies of the death of a son at four months in 1944 and the cot death of a grandson in 1983, Mrs Symons became involved with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. She was a fundraiser and supporter, also acting as a befriender in the Bradford group and as recently as last summer took part in a collection day for the charity in Ilkley.

Daughter Alison Richards said her mother had heard about woodland burials at Thornton Cemetery and had obtained details about them herself, saying that was her wish for her funeral.

In this kind of burial, a biodegadable coffin is used and a tree is planted on the site.

Born in India, where her parents were Methodist missionaries, Mrs Symons obtained a first class degree in English and French at Trinity College, Dublin, where she was taught by Samuel Beckett.

In the early years of Second World War she worked in Geneva for the World YWCA, helping Jewish refugees to escape, before catching the last train to Bordeaux as the Germans swept down across France. Having missed the convoy of boats heading for England, she and a friend were given passage on a boat filled with linseed.

She married Christopher in 1940 and the couple moved around the country because of his work as a civil servant in the Factory Inspectorate. Mrs Symons was a Labour councillor in the 1950s and later became involved in the anti-apartheid movement, also helping to set up a children's hospice in Birmingham where the couple then lived. Her husband died in 1985.

The woodland burial is at Thornton Cemetery at 11am on Monday. A memorial service will be held at Trinity Methodist Church, Lilycroft Road, at 2.30pm on the same day.

e-mail: jan.winter

@bradford.newsquest.co.uk