Anne Cocker

Born: May 25, 1920;

Died: November 21, 2014.

Anne Cocker, who has died aged 94, was a young grocery worker whose work ethic and astute business mind helped to turn her fiance's fledgling enterprise into globally-renowned rose breeders favoured by The Queen.

Together they reinvented the family horticultural firm, specialising in the roses they loved and producing dozens of new varieties including the world's most popular rose for many years, Silver Jubilee, created in 1977 to mark Her Majesty's 25 years on the throne.

And when their partnership, forged during the war in the Civil Defence Service, was cut short by her husband Alec's death that same year, she continued to work quietly and with dignity to strengthen and expand the business, becoming an expert in her own right and winning her own Royal Warrant from The Queen Mother.

Today Cockers Roses is still flourishing, run by her son, the great, great grandson of the man who founded the original business in 1841.

Aberdeen-born Mrs Cocker, known as Nan, had no horticultural experience before she met her future husband, Alec Morrison Cocker, while they were both doing their bit for King and country during the Second World War.

The second eldest of four daughters of granite mason and draughtsman John Rennie and his wife Barbara, she initially worked in George Milne's licensed grocers in the city's Orchard Street. She had had a job there while still at Aberdeen's Central School and took a full-time post when she finished her education.

After war broke out, she joined the Civil Defence Service, driving an Albion bus as an ambulance and working on the heaviest nights of bombing in the Granite City, witnessing things she told her family she hoped they would never see.

Alec, who had been in a near-fatal motorbike accident in 1931 and suffered leg injuries that left him unfit for active service, had joined the First Aid section. His great grandfather, a former gardener at Castle Fraser, had founded James Cocker and Sons in the 19th century after leaving his job following his refusal to accede to his employer's request that he pick fruit on a Sunday.

The original business had provided forest trees and herbaceous plants but expanded and diversified into rose breeding in the 1890s. However, after the death of the founder's grandson, Alec's father, trustees appointed to attend to the affairs of his children wound up the business in 1923.

But in 1936 young Alec revived the family trade, renting a field to grow roses, chrysanthemums and polyanthus. When he and Nan met he was growing vegetables for the war effort.

They went into business together when the war was over, using Nan's £80 war grant to set up James Cocker and Sons anew. They worked day and night to establish their enterprise and put off marriage for seven years, until 1952, so that they could ensure the firm was on a secure footing. They then decided to specialise in breeding new rose varieties, something previous generations had done successfully.

When the business outgrew its original site they bought a farm on the outskirts of Aberdeen, which included a dilapidated property, Whitemyres House, which they lovingly rebuilt.

Their early successful roses included Morning Jewel, Rosy Mantle and Gay Gordons but they were outshone by Alec's Red, a cherry red hybrid tea which won the Royal National Rose Society's (RNRS) President's International Trophy in 1970. In 1975 Alec was granted a Royal Warrant for the supply of roses to HM The Queen and two years later she gave them permission to name a creamy, peachy pink hybrid rose Silver Jubilee to commemorate her 25 years as a monarch.

It was probably Mrs Cocker's favourite bloom and became the world's best-selling rose for several years, winning the RNRS President's International Trophy. Sadly, Alec did not live to see its success, dying of a heart attack that year. His son, Alec jnr, then just 17, received the award posthumously on his behalf.

His mother was already a shrewd and capable businesswoman and, along with her son, kept the business running with ease. They opened a garden centre and, after the Royal Warrant passed to her, she served a term as president of the Aberdeen Association of Royal Warrant Holders.

Though she had learned her craft from her husband, she too became a world-renowned breeder in her own right, producing varieties including Gordon's College, Remember Me and Heart of Gold. She was awarded the Scottish Horticultural Medal, by the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society, for outstanding services to Scottish horticulture, in 1995. Four years later she was given the RNRS's highest honour, the Dean Hole Medal.

In 2001 she was awarded what is believed to be the last Royal Warrant granted by HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. A few years later she the People's Choice Award, at the Glasgow International Rose Trials, for a vermilion hybrid tea With All My Love, and in total the company has introduced more than 100 new varieties of rose, winning dozens of awards at home and as far away as New Zealand.

Glamorous and always impeccably dressed, Mrs Cocker was one of the first women to be made a Burgess of the Guild of Aberdeen and was also involved in various other organisations: The RNRS; the British Rose Growers Association; British Association of Rose Breeders; Zonta International; the Inner Wheel and Aberdeen Businesswomen's Club.

A North of Scotland table tennis champion in her youth and a woman who loved fast cars - she was still driving at 85 - she continued to breed new rose varieties until well into her 80s, pacing the trial field daily in search of promise from the young seedlings.

She is survived by her son Alec jnr, three grandchildren and two of her sisters, Pat and Bess.

ALISON SHAW