Shropshire's charity jumble sale queen Mo taking her bow

But this weekend will be the last time Maureen Parry - widely known to friends and customers as Mo - will set up the tables and lays out the clothes and bric-a-brac, because she is retiring after decades of tireless charity work.

Mo, 75, has raised money for a bewildering array of good causes for nearly 50 years, and started hosting jumble sales about 30 years ago, she said, which became a regular event from about 1996.

She said: "I started when my husband (Clifford, 84) had cancer, for the Lingen Davies cancer relief fund. His cancer was really bad, he had non-hodgkin's lymphoma but he survived that and he still works now repairing things."

Clifford is a retired mechanic, she said, while she once ran the Boar's Head pub in Bishop's Castle and then worked as a cleaner.

"After that I started doing jumble sales for soldiers, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan, as a friend's son was in the Royal Marines out there. They would tell me what they wanted and I would send it out."

She said the jumble sales funded everything from food to bikes to ride around camp and two mini refrigerators for the troops to use.

People's cast-offs had also helped fund a defibrillator for Bishop's Castle Medical Practice, gone towards housing and care for older people, towards the public hall, the town band, and the firefighter's charity.

Mo said that since the mid 90s she had put on two jumble sales a year, raising roughly £600 a time - and she also organised car boot sales too.

She said: "It's not just a jumble sale, we have a cake stall and a tombola as well so we make good money. I also need to thank my team of girls who still come to help regularly, do the teas and man the tombola, most of them are in their 80s."

The jumble sales were so successful that for each one that she always had lots left over afterwards.

"I have more stuff left over from one than others have from lots of jumble sales - people bring it from all over the place. If you say 'Mo Parry' they all say 'Oh yes, I know her'."

She said the left over items often went to charity shops and organisations, and she had previously had an arrangement with friend Evelyn Vaughan who would collect and distribute them.

But with Evelyn retiring at 79, Mo said it was time she called it a day too.

Mo was awarded a Bishop's Castle Civic Award in October for her work, on the first occasion the town has held such a ceremony.

Mayor of Bishop's Castle Karen Bavastock said the civic award for community fundraising was created especially for Mo by the judges.

She said: "Maureen was nominated Maureen and David Jones who said that Maureen has devoted 47 years to fundraising for many different organisations and spoke about the thousands of pounds Maureen has raised for charity," she said.