A relief worker who saw the horrors of Nazi concentration camps first hand has died at the age of 97.

Anne Waterston, of Church Street, Isleworth, was one of the last survivors of the relief teams which entered Belsen concentration camp after Allied troops discovered Holocaust victims.

She was born in Grimsby in 1912, and lived in the north until she met and married Lieutenant Hubert Tanner, an officer in the Royal Navy.

She travelled with him to British bases in the Mediterranean, but returned to England when war broke out in 1939.

Just months into the conflict, Lt Tanner was killed when the ship he was serving on sank near Dunkirk.

Soon after his death, Ms Waterston suffered more heartache when their child died at birth – and a later attempt to adopt an evacuee baby came to a sad end because, before the paperwork was completed, the child was stillborn.

But Mrs Waterston’s resolve to help others remained.

She trained as a nursery nurse and worked with evacuee children before heading to Germany in the later stages of the war with a British relief team.

In Belsen she helped starving and diseased concentration camp survivors – and met David Waterston, commanding officer of an army medical team.

The pair married in 1948, and settled down to start a family.

They moved into Richard Reynolds House, in Church Street, and Mrs Waterston became heavily involved in community life.

She regularly provided lunch for homeless children who lived in the house next door to Christian Aid.

She was also an active letter writer for prisoners, as a member of Amnesty International.

Mrs Waterston and David, who died in 1985, were members of All Saints Church, where her funeral was held.

The couple were instrumental in the rebuilding of the church, which was completed in the 1970s, having been destroyed by schoolchildren arsonists in 1943.

Mrs Waterston died on November 14.

She is survived by her son Rob and daughters Sarah and Jane.