Eileen Huggins

My mother Eileen Huggins, who has died aged 92, wanted to go on the stage, but as her sister had already done so, her bank manager father ruled it out. So she became a secretary at his bank, and joined its operatic society, playing Kim in their 1936 production of Show Boat at the Piccadilly Theatre, London. Ten years later she starred in Rose Marie at the Scala. It was a time when there was less of a divide between professional and amateur productions, which were often reviewed in the national press.

It was during the Show Boat run that she met her future husband, Jesse Huggins. He was playing Joe, and had sung on the Sanders of the River movie soundtrack with Paul Robeson. He introduced Eileen to the concert artiste scene as his duet partner.

My father had been a first world war army officer, and having been wounded, did voluntary service for hospitals. He was chairman of the Manor House hospital in Hampstead - which had supplied a field hospital in France - and worked with trade unions and the Co-operative Society. In 1954 the couple founded the hospital's operatic society, which after the hospital's closure became Manor Light Opera, and continues to this day, thanks in no small part to their administrative support. Jesse died in 1982.

Eileen gave many performances - her last, three years ago, was singing Come into the Garden, Maud. On her 90th birthday she was honoured by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association for 70 years' service to the theatre. It was only the second such award.

Born Eileen Rowe in Shepherd's Bush, west London, and educated at Twickenham county school, she won medals for her singing. The family, unusually, enjoyed continental holidays in the 1930s, though it was a holiday home on Hayling Island that fostered Eileen's love of the sea.

In 2001, having not travelled abroad since the second world war, she managed to get to France on her 1936 passport with her French daughter-in-law, to the amazement, but aquiescence, of passport control.

She is survived by her four sons.