The University of Nottingham

Goodbye to

our friend Dolly

Mrs Dolly (Doris Ellen) Sewell, a close friend of the Campaign Office’s fundraising team, has died aged 98.

In her later years the tireless fundraiser performed a number of hair-raising acts including abseiling down a building and riding pillion on a motorbike. She celebrated her 90th birthday being wrapped in a python snake and once told the Nottingham Post: “I suppose I’m a little bit mad, but not dangerously so”.

Dolly, a positive thinker, was also a member of the Nottingham Writer’s Club and author of several books. She sold her hand-stitched aprons, dishcloths and ran a Knit and Natter group, raising thousands of pounds for the University’s Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre as well as other causes.

Emma Pearson, Senior Development Manager in the University’s Campaign Office, said: “I remember turning the radio on one day to hear Dolly, aged 94, on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2, extolling the virtues of taking vitamins. She was truly one of life’s great characters and we need more of them. I feel privileged to have known her.”

A celebration of Dolly’s life was held at Stapleford Methodist Church in December.