A memorial service has been held for Celia Martin, a leading light in Worthing's world of music who died recently.

Worthing Mayor Eric Mardell attended the service at St Columba's United Reformed Church in St Michael's Road, Heene.

Mrs Martin, who was 55, was for 14 years joint administrator of Worthing Competitive Music Festival, which lasts for almost a month and attracts about 3,000 entries.

She engaged adjudicators processing the entries, masterminded the souvenir programme and undertook many other jobs to ensure the festival ran smoothly.

Festival chairman Brian Lynn said: "We shall miss her terribly. She has been such a vital person over so many years and a lot of the success of the festival is very much down to her.

"Her drive and enthusiasm were tremendous."

In the early Seventies Mrs Martin became music mistress at Davison High School for Girls in Worthing, where she remained until 1987.

She then continued to take an interest in the work of the school through her membership of the past-teachers association.

She was able to put her organ-playing skills to good use and deputised at many local churches of different denominations.

Mrs Martin was organist at the Second Church of Christ Scientist for more than 25 years and played her last service there the week before going into hospital in September.

She also acted as occasional accompanist for Worthing Musical Comedy Society and played the piano in the orchestra for many of their shows.

In 1983, Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra was without a timpanist and Mrs Martin agreed to fill in for performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah, with Jan Cervenka conducting.

It was normal for new players to be put on trial but she made such a good impression she was immediately accepted into the orchestra and played with them in almost every concert until June last year.

The orchestra is planning a memorial concert at Worthing Assembly Hall in Stoke Abbott Road on Sunday, June 29, at 3pm.

It will be conducted by Robin Page and Mrs Martin's husband, Marcus, with the proceeds going to St Barnabas Hospice in Columbia Drive, West Durrington.

Mr Martin said his wife had been battling courageously with retroperitoneal liposarcoma, a rare form of cancer, for the past eight and a half years.

He said: "Christmas this year was very happy time for us and she had set herself goals for the early part of 2003, which she achieved, despite being in lot of discomfort and being very frustrated at her condition.

"Her final outing was to a rehearsal of Worthing Symphony Orchestra last listening to one of her favourite pieces, the Elgar Violin Concerto.

"Throughout the final four months of her illness we both received tremendous support spiritually from several churches and their congregations and physically from many friends and acquaintances whom we initially knew less well.

"The staff at St Barnabas were wonderful, as were the many carers employed by social services, Crossroads for Carers, the doctors and nurses from Heene Road Surgery who visited daily and, not least, a team of very special people who arrived on the doorstep unexpectedly with tasty food prepared or who sat with Celia for so many hours.

"She always thanked everybody so politely and profusely and sadly this must be a final big thank-you, from her, through me."

Mrs Martin was chairwoman of Worthing Flower Club for two years, from 1999 to 2001, which was something she was enormously proud of.

She was also chairman of Worthing Symphony Society, a position she still held at the time of her death.

Her funeral took place at Worthing Crematorium on Monday.