TRIBUTES have been paid to a hard-working former Cleethorpes councillor, who has died at the age of 88.
Josephine Gibney, who died on Sunday, after a short illness, served as a Conservative on Cleethorpes Borough Council for 12 years.
She was a familiar face in the area today known as Sidney Sussex, and lived in Manchester Street for many years up until her death.
She was a key figure in the formation of the Sidney Sussex branch of the Conservative Association, which is still going strong today, and served as a magistrate on the Grimsby and Cleethorpes bench.
In 1976, Mrs Gibney published her autobiography, Joe McGarrigle's Daughter, which described her deprived childhood in Grimsby and Yorkshire in the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s.
Although she stepped back from frontline politics in the 1970s, Mrs Gibney retained a keen interest in local issues, and was a prolific contributor to the Grimsby Telegraph's letters page.
Councillor Keith Brookes, the leader of the Conservative group on North East Lincolnshire Council, said: "Josephine was an extremely hard-working councillor and left a legacy that people still remember all these years later.
"She was particularly well known in the Sidney Sussex area of Cleethorpes for the amount of work that she did for the people in her ward.
"That area of Cleethorpes had a high population of trawlermen and people who worked on the docks and Josephine did a lot to help them and their families.
"She was a staunch Conservative right until her death, as her many letters to the Grimsby Telegraph showed."
Noreen Field, who served on Cleethorpes Borough Council at the same time as Mrs Gibney, said: "She was a very good councillor, worked hard for a lot of people and did a lot for various causes."
Shirley Gray, a founding member of the Sidney Sussex branch of the Conservative Association and a former neighbour of Mrs Gibney's in Manchester Street, said: "I knew Josephine in the early days of the branch as she used to come to come to our meetings.
"She was a very good councillor because she always used to talk to people in the street."
Mrs Gibney was married to the late Frank and is survived by her son Russell.
He funeral will be at Old Clee Church on Wednesday at 12.30pm. A tribute from Mrs Gibney's family will appear in the Grimsby Telegraph soon.
