TRIBUTES have been paid to much-loved writer, storyteller and educator Carol Florence Graham, who died in Hereford on December 5.

She was born in Bolton in 1967 to Kenneth and Florence Starr Wood – her father a journalist and mother a mathematician.

Carol went to Smithills Grammar School and studied English and American Literature at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Her travels took her to Italy, Portugal, and the South Pacific and upon her return she married Charlie Graham, settling in Devon where her three children were born.

In 2004 she was drawn to Herefordshire, where she created Story Space, a community interest company which worked with people to realise their potential through words, and Story Play – taking storytelling to schools to enrich children's experience of education.

She led closed groups for the Ledbury Poetry Festival Community Programme since 2016; worked with women on probation and with adults returning to education and people with learning difficulties.

Her work extended to Breinton Community Farm, Ross Court Care Home and Rose Tinted Rags where she helped prepare poems to be read at the 2019 Ledbury Poetry Festival Community Showcase.

In 2015 Carol produced a performance piece called Watchers of the Skies, inspired by her grandmother Edna Leigh who grew up on the great plains of Kansas beneath the wide starry skies.

With unbounding enthusiasm and determination she took the show on tour, starting at the Leominster Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival and then further into the West Midlands and beyond. In September her book The Woodcutter's Tale was published by Ragged Bears.

A celebration of her life took place at Breinton Village Hall.