The legacy of a charity worker who spent more than 50 years improving the lives of disabled children and their families will live on...

IT was a crusade led by 12 dedicated and concerned parents that grew in to one of Southampton's most vital charities.

And, on her death aged 93, founding member Phyllis Creed can rest peacefully knowing the Rose Road Association - the charity she helped establish and dedicated her life to - had proved a godsend to thousands of disabled children and young people in the city for over half a century.

It was 1952 when Mrs Creed and a group of equally concerned parents decided to speak out and campaign for improved facilities for disabled children in Southampton.

Her experiences with her own disabled daughter Judith had highlighted to Mrs Creed that despite the 1948 education Act giving children the right to attend school for the first time, there remained a significant lack of opportunities for disabled children and young people.

The group placed an advert in the Southern Daily Echo urging parents of other disabled youngsters to come forward and help them address the problem.

In May that year, The Southampton and District Spastics Association was born in a hired room at a ballet school.

Some 53 years later and the Rose Road Association, as the society later became known, is now one of the city's most cherished and respected charities.

Association chief executive Heather Aspinall, who had known Phyllis since her appointment in 1993, is in no doubt as to Mrs Creed's legacy.

Leading the tributes she said: "As a result of the work of Mrs Creed and people like her, young people with disabilities are now valued. We recognise they can achieve things and we celebrate that.

"She always said my child's worth something and deserves better than what they were getting. The concept of being valued is everything the charity is still about today.

"The 1948 Education Act had given every child the right to an education but it excluded disabled children. As a group, Mrs Creed and her fellow founding members asked why?

"They thought it was terrible their children weren't entitled to education and felt a real sense of outrage about it. The Red Rose Association wouldn't be here without her and her group."

Mrs Creed, a widow who survived her beloved husband Frank, lived in Compton Road, New Milton and remained an active member of her local Baptist church right up until her death in hospital from heart problems on March 15.

She was cremated in Bournemouth, on Maundy Thursday, at a service attended by just close friends and family.

Among the mourners were representatives from a local taxi firm in New Milton who had provided Mrs Creed with transport for many years to visit Judith, now in her 60s, at her care home.

Alert until the end, Mrs Creed had taken a book out of the hospital library and read it from cover to cover the weekend before she died.

Aspinall insists that was typical of the Phyllis Creed she had come to know.

"She was a very, very bright lady who never forgot anything. She could remember things that happened years ago as clearly as things that happened yesterday. She was incredibly lucid and was dedicated and engaged fully with the charity.

"Mrs Creed always used to send her apologies in to me if she couldn't make it to an AGM and one year she told me off because I forgot to add her name to the apologies on the meeting minutes. At the following meeting I had to put in an amendment!

"She was meticulous to detail and was always incredibly helpful in talking to us and helping us fill in the gaps about the past.

"Rose Road would not be the organisation it is today without the tenacity and determination of Mrs Creed and her fellow founding members."

Mrs Creed's death means just one of the 12 original charity founders is still alive.

Like his old friend Phyllis, Eric Eyres, who is also now in his 90s and lives in Totton, was made one of three Honorary Life Presidents of the Rose Road Association. The other founder to be honoured, a Mrs Langdon, died some years ago.

As part of the dedicated dozen, Eyres, Mrs Creed and Mrs Langdon, fought tirelessly to get their children recognised as equals.

By September 1952, the Association's membership had risen to 35 and within a few years the demand was so great the Association needed its own premises. With the help of Southampton City Council and associated bodies such as the Spastics Society (now SCOPE), the Rose Road Centre in Portswood was opened in 1967.

But again the charity was to rapidly outgrow its surroundings.

And, after a fundraising appeal to raise £5m was launched in 1996, the phenomenal state-of-the-art Bradbury Centre was opened in Aldermoor Road by HRH Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex in January 2004.

The centre now offers accommodation for 12 people in its respite facilities as well as sitting rooms, games rooms, a secure garden and courtyards and 11 bedrooms.