A WOMAN employed to make music to raise people's spirits throughout the region during the Second World War has died.

Frances Helen Anderson, 92, was born in Sussex in 1912 and read music and history at Last Margaret Hall, in Oxford, before studying at the Royal College of Music.

She was 28 when appointed by the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts (CEMA) as the music traveller for Northumberland, Durham and North Yorkshire.

She travelled around the region arranging musical events to maintain morale.

In 1944, she moved as music traveller to the South- West of England, but before she left the North-East she organised a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion, in Durham Cathedral.

There was only a small choir at the cathedral so she set about creating one - under strict instructions from CEMA to ensure it was a profit-making project.

She recruited sponsors and formed a 90-strong choir and an orchestra from the the local community and her friends.

An audience of more than 1,500 enjoyed the show, which made a profit.

She had retired to Great Coxwell, in Oxfordshire, in 1977 but continued to teach music in the village where she died last month.