A SCHOOL nurse who has come face-to-face with a grizzly bear and braved sub-zero temperatures in the Arctic is leaving the North-East for a new life.

Sister Hazel Nevin has left Barnard Castle School, in County Durham, where she was nurse for the past four and a half years, is to head back to her native South Africa.

She is taking up a post at Clifton School in the Draakensberg Mountains in the new year.

"I have loved my time in England and I shall really miss Barnard Castle School, which has been wonderful," she said. "But I am a great adventurer and have decided to go back to Africa."

One adventure in recent years was with a grizzly bear while on holiday in Alaska. "We went on a survival course first which told you what to do if you came across a bear in the wild," she said.

"We felt such fools shouting 'bear, bear, hello, bear' and never thought we would ever need to do it. Then, as we were walking through a wood in Alaska, we walked straight into a bear foraging for food. If he doesn't see you, you are supposed to back away. But he did so we started shouting 'bear, bear, hello bear' and making ourselves look as tall as possible. He just continued eating."

On another occasion, she ended up in the Arctic Circle with astronomer Patrick Moore looking at the Aurora Borealis.

Sister Nevin said her time at the school had also been eventful. "On many an occasion, I have had to fight with the sheep and goat after catching them grazing in my garden," she said. "Then there was the hedgehog, rabbits and squirrels to feed. I have never been so happy in a job."