FAMILY and friends of a popular licensee will say their final farewells this afternoon.

Pauline Dickinson, who owned several free houses across East Lancashire with her husband Bob, died after a long battle with dementia. She was 84.

Her hotelier son Stuart McGlyn, who owns the Norwood Guest House in Accrington, paid tribute to an ‘outgoing, honest, and kind person’.

He said: “She was also a very astute business-woman. Everything had to be right and she had very high morals.”

Born in Adlington, on the outskirts of Chorley on July 25, 1930, Pauline, nee Snape, was schooled in Rivington before going on to secretarial college in Preston.

She worked in an office for the Co-Op for a number of years before she met Bob.

In 1969, they bought the Crown in Rawtenstall together, before taking over the Royal Hotel in Waterfoot. In the 1970s, they converted an old barn in Haslingden Old Road, Oswaldtwistle, and turned it into a thriving restaurant called Ye Olde Brown Cow.

They went on to own the Old Rosins Inn in Darwen, the medieval-themed rest-aurant Knights Castle in Adlington, the Lamb Inn in Newchurch, Pendle, and the Spinner’s Arms in Darwen.

They retired in the late 1980s before settling on the Costa Del Sol in Spain.

Stuart said: “She loved going away on holiday, relaxing and cruising. Eventually, they came back from Spain because of my mum’s dwindling health.”

The pair lived together at Hawthorn Lodge in Yew Tree Drive, Blackburn.

Pauline was admitted to Royal Blackburn Hospital around two to three weeks before she died in the early hours of Sunday, October 19.

She was also survived by her husband of 46 years Bob, 80, her other two children Christopher and Shirley, brothers Ken, Iven, and Eric, and grandchildren Emily, Matthew, Ross, and Todd.

Her funeral was due to be held at St Paul’s Church in Adlington, from 2pm. Donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Alzheimer’s Society, via Livesey Funeral Services in Horwich.