Rosemary Peart, Founder of Ramsgate Travel Service, dies aged 84

Mrs Peart, a great supporter of this newspaper, advertising since the inception of her business in 1983, passed away on Wednesday, September 1.

Justine Sealey, Owner of Ramsgate Travel Service, said Mrs Peart - a former Lilli Pilli resident - opened the business after having been made redundant from her travel consulting job at a local agency.

"While this was crushing for Rosemary to be laid off, in true Rosemary fashion, she picked herself up and started to think of where she could get another job," Ms Sealey said.

"After being strongly encouraged by many senior industry colleagues to go it alone, Rosemary decided that with the support of [her husband] John, and a combination of trepidation mixed with enthusiasm, she started looking for a shop to open her own agency."

The inaugural business slogan was 'Think Travel Think Rosemary'. The agency flourished and Mrs Peart won many travel awards both as a consultant and as a business.

"All staff who worked for Rosemary over the many years at Ramsgate Travel Service would acknowledge that they learnt part of their trade from this legendary consultant and business woman of the travel industry," said Ms Sealey.

"Rosemary always worked hard and would never settle for good enough.

"It was always about exceeding expectations of clients and more importantly understanding what those expectations were. To this day, Ramsgate Travel Service operates on the same premise, hence why we are still going strong after 38 years."

Mrs Peart was one of the pioneers of escorted group tours and, together with John - a school principal at Hampden Park Public School - took hundreds of locals overseas. Mrs Peart was "the consummate host and always ensured that no one was ever alone and everyone felt included," according to Ms Sealey.

"This meant she had a fiercely strong and loyal following who didn't care where they went as long as they were going with her and John. I often heard clients say - 'where are we going next, it doesn't matter just book us up!'"