A former teacher at Westlea Primary School, Susan Anderson, has died at her home in France after a two-year battle with cancer. She was 73.

Ms Anderson came to Swindon from Portsmouth in 1988 with her husband Richard Churm, a journalist with the Adver, and their daughter Lucy and son Rohan, who both went to Lethbridge and then Commonweal schools.

Aside from teaching Ms Anderson was a founder of the Thamesdown Junior Chess Club which during the 90s became a major force in British junior chess, providing a number of national as well as county and west of England junior champions.

She took early retirement from Westlea in 2000 and enjoyed four years at Swindon College as a student counsellor.

In 2004 she and her husband moved to the Brittany village of Huelgoat where they played a full part in local life.

As in Swindon, she formed a junior chess club, Le Petit Pion, which provided many junior Breton champions, and apart from that sang in the choir, helped run the library and was a leading light in the battle to save the local arboretum, which, so far, has been successful.