A DEDICATED nurse who helpedcarry the Olympic Torch to the 2012 London games has died.
Elsena Marsden lost her six-year battle with cancer on August 16, but her husband Michael paid tribute to his beloved wife, who fought her disease right until the end.
"She filled her days," he told the Mirror. "She did not let the cancer get her down.
"She was buying time but it got progressively worse. She kept her spirits up until the last few weeks."
For 15 years during the 1980s and 1990s, Mrs Marsden worked as a midwife in the Tandridge district before being based at East Surrey Hospital in the mid-1990s.
During her time as a midwife she helped many mothers throughout Tandridge deliver their babies at home. Mr Marsden said his wife's manner turned some of her patients into lifelong friends. He said: "A couple of the children she delivered are married now, she used to stay in touch with them. She stayed friends with the families and then with the children she helped deliver."
He added: "She specialised in home deliveries, which a lot of people didn't want to do back then.
"One night she got a call and turned up at the house, the doctor arrived and said 'Thank God you're here, I haven't done one of these for two years.'
"She did it because she could. She said it was far better for mothers to give birth in the comfort of their own home and bedroom.
Mrs Marsden was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. Despite undergoing more than 30 treatments, the grandmother-of-one took part in two 100-mile walks in 2012 and 2013 to raise money for the Grace cancer charity.
She was also chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Crowborough on its way to the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Mr Marsden said: "The atmosphere on the day she carried the torch was tremendous.
"She was only little and you almost lost her in the crowd. As she came down into the town there were just thousands of people there."
Along with her walking, Mrs Marsden, who lived in Copthorne with her husband, sang in a rock choir where she took a front-row spot due to her small stature and with whom she sang a concert at Wembley arena.
She and her husband also enjoyed road trips around Europe but, Mr Marsden said, spontaneity was the key. "She was a great companion," he told the Mirror. "We toured the continent two or three times a year and never knew where we were going to stop each night.
"We just got in a car and then went."
The couple were together for 52 years after meeting at a youth club Mr Marsden was running in Kent. They married in 1969 and had one son, Philip.
Three weeks before her death, Mrs Marsden was taken to East Surrey Hospital, then transferred to Royal Surrey at Guildford.
Doctors there tried to operate but she died aged 73 on August 16.
Mr Marsden said: "Being a nurse she knew all about her illness and that she could not beat it, but she never let it get her down."
