ONE of Bolton’s most well-known figures has died.

Adrienne Bolton passed away at Bolton Hospice on March 5 at the age of 80.

Mrs Bolton was the youngest sister of the Clarke triplets - Donald, Alan and Barbara - who became local celebrities as the first set of surviving triplets to be born in Bolton back in 1931.

She grew up in the Deane area of Bolton and attended Whitecroft Road School.

After school she trained as a nurse cadet and later became a midwife. By the end of her career she had become a senior midwife tutor at St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester.

Mrs Bolton also ran a family planning clinic in Astley Bridge for many years.

Both her brothers served as Mayor of Bolton and during Donald’s 1977 term of office, Mrs Bolton and her two sisters each acted as mayoress for four months each.

She and her husband David had four children and later 13 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Mrs Bolton travelled the world visiting India, Nepal, Australia and new Zealand. She also walked the Great Wall of China and South America’s Inca Trail.

In 1999 she launched her own fundraising campaign to help a hospital and orphanage in Tanzania. It was inspired by the shocking sights she saw in a hospital there during a visit to her niece, Phillipa.

Mrs Bolton, who lived in Moss Lea and later Bromley Cross Road, was well-known in the community.

She set up the Alzheimer’s Singing for the Brain group and also worked with the elderly as a pastoral visitor for St Augustine’s Church in Tonge Moor.

One of her sons, Leighton, said: “She was an exceptional person and was verry, very kind. She did a lot for people.

"At Christmas she told me that if she died tomorrow she had had a fantastic life.”

Mrs Bolton’s funeral will take place at St Augustine’s Church at 1pm on Tuesday, March 19.