DOG walkers in and around Binstead will likely remember Valda Wakeley and her long line of corgis.

Mrs Wakeley was a familiar sight in and around Binstead throughout the 1950s through to 2006 when she moved to join her son Tim and his wife Maria in Spencer Close, Ryde.

Mrs Wakeley established her hairdressing salon at the village forge, at the bottom of Binstead Hill, in the late 1950s, supported by her mother Hilda who worked as assistant and receptionist.

Mrs Wakeley eventually worked mornings only at the salon, with Kay Palmer working afternoons. Kay took over the salon full time in 1990.

Walkers will remember Mrs Wakeley's black and tan corgis — there were several editions — traipsing the lanes and fields around Firestone, Players and Binstead beaches and Dame Anthony’s Common come rain or shine, hail and snow.

Mushrooms and blackberries were to be harvested in the autumn and the joy of early spring flowers to be experienced in late winter and early springtime — each season held a wonder for her which she exploited to the full.

She was a born and bred Islander whose family home was initially in Weeks Road, Ryde, then, in the early 1940s, Glencoe at the top of Arnold Road.

Her parents, Reg Aylward and Hilda (nee Prangnell) were also born and bred Islanders.

She married midlander Arthur Wakeley, who was on the Island as a staff sergeant with the Royal Engineers working on Operation Pluto, laying a fuel pipeline across to France to support the invasion.

In the 1950s Arthur went on to work on the Black Knight rocket programme at Saunders Roe.

Mrs Wakeley was 93 when she died. She is survived by her sister Sheila, her two sons Tim and Stuart, her three granddaughters, Clare, Jemma and Sophie, and two great grandsons, Ben and William.