A "remarkable" grandmother who helped people with learning difficulties has died.

Violet Brand died peacefully at the Nursing Home in Chorleywood aged 91 from natural causes on Saturday, April 4.

She was well known for creating the ‘Spelling Made Easy’ programme in the early 1980’s, as well as dedicating her time to helping children and adults with reading and spelling difficulties.

Mrs Brand was born in Canterbury in 1929 and one of four children whose father and mother were involved in the Salvation Army.

After leaving home in 1947, she went to Eltham teacher training College in South East London where she met Geoffrey Brand, who had been a trumpet student at the Royal Academy of Music.

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In 1950 the pair married and lived in Colindale where they had two children, Michael and Gill.

Shortly after qualifying as a teacher, Mrs Brand remained in London and started work at a primary school in Kentish Town.

After realising that children were not learning to read, she began a life-long dedication to helping children and adults with reading and spelling difficulties.

In 1955 Mr Brand stopped working as a professional musician and became a BBC producer, at which time the couple moved to Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire.

Mrs Brand was still a full-time mother and went back into part-time teaching, particularly of children with reading and spelling difficulties, getting a job at nearby West Hyde School just outside Rickmansworth.

In 1967 Mrs Brand and her husband went on to write “Brass Bands in the Twentieth Century” on a daily basis until 1975 when they sold the newspaper.

During the late 1970’s Mrs Brand and others shared the growing realisation that literacy levels were not improving in education - and she decided to create what became known as the Watford Dyslexia Unit.

Mrs Brand was also a campaigner and pioneer in the fight to get dyslexia acknowledged as a condition by the Department of Education in the late 1970’s prior to the publication of the Warnock Report, which in turn formed the basis of the 1981 Education Act.

This recognised special needs in children of school age.

She also persuaded the Royal Society of Arts to set up a Diploma in teaching Specific Learning Difficulties, with Mrs Brand creating the syllabus for the course.

Mrs Brand also created her own teaching material called ‘Spelling Made Easy’ in the early 1980’s.

This ‘Multi -Sensory Phonic’ method was first published in 1984, with one teacher saying that “Violet Brand was my hero”.

In 1994 she was awarded the MBE for services to adult literacy.

She leaves behind her two children and four grandchildren, Katy, Helen, Ian and Jessica.

Her son, Michael Brand, described her as a "remarkable woman who achieved a great deal as an educationalist specialising in Literacy and also in the world of the Brass Bands".

He said: "She was very active as pioneer in teaching literacy through phonics and even now her Spelling books are widely used.

"Her long marriage to Geoffrey was the absolutely fundamental building block of her life.

"He always generously said that what Violet achieved in her own field was more important than his achievements in his. Perhaps it is more the case that neither would have achieved as much as they did without the love, encouragement and freedom they gave to each other.

"We are all very proud that she was awarded the MBE for services to Adult Literacy and are grateful for everything she gave us."