AUTISTISM care pioneer Betty Peters, the founder principal of the Wessex Autistic Society's Portfield School in Christchurch, has died, aged 88.

Born in London where she was educated at a convent school, Mrs Peters had considered a career in medicine but joined the Foreign Office as a code-breaker during World War II and even volunteered to be parachuted into occupied Europe.

But instead she enrolled as a Royal Navy nurse where her service in the Far East theatre included looking after former prisoners of war, many of them suffering psychiatric problems as a result of ill-treatment by their captors.

After the war her work with the newly-formed National Health Service brought her to Bournemouth in 1948 and she later trained as a teacher.

Her interest and expertise in the field of the then little known condition of autism saw her join the executive council of the national autistic society and she was a founder member of the Wessex society which opened its first Portfield School in a converted house in Stour Road in 1974.

When Mrs Peters retired in 1984 the school had expanded into satellite and dormitory units in Stour Road and Magdalen Lane but her long-time ambition to create a purpose-built school for children with autism was only realised 20 years later with the opening of the new multi-million pound Portfield complex in Parley Lane.

Wessex Autistic Society chief executive Bob Lowndes said: "There is no doubt that her energy and passion was a major driving force in the establishment of Portfield School."

In retirement Mrs Peters travelled widely lecturing and advise on dealing with the challenges of autism and she became involved in relief projects for disabled children in the Seychelles and Portugal.

A worshipper at St Joseph's Catholic church in Purewell, where her requiem mass was held last Friday, Mrs Peters was also an active member of Christchurch Local History Society and spent her last few years researching and writing a history of the church, which was published shortly before her death.