One of the last photos of Kitty Stewart, taken as she spoke to the New Journal in the days before she died. She is pictured with her son Mark.

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A GREAT-grandmother has died, without receiving £500,000 compensation owed to her by the government, using her final words to urge her son not to give up fighting for victims of the infected blood scandal.

Kathleen “Kitty” Stewart, who lived her whole life in Camden Town, was remembered this week as a supremely devoted mother, who loved going to the bingo, picking up bargains on a TV shopping channel, tending to her celebrated garden, and beach-view trips to Clacton-on-Sea.

But the 84-year-old had spent decades “riddled with guilt” after her husband and two sons were infected with blood contaminated with Hepatitis C at the Royal Free Hospital in 1981.

Tragically, her death on Sunday came too late for her to receive any compensation, a claim that dies with her – a final injustice caused by government inaction.

This week, her son Mark said: “I was sitting with her, holding her hand and she seemed all right and she looked lovely.

And I was thinking, maybe she has got weeks not days, you know? “Then her breathing started playing up and I knew something was wrong. If only the government had worked as fast as the cancer.”

He added: “The night before she died, I told her: ‘You’re the best mother ever.’ She answered me back: ‘I love you too. Don’t give up son.’”

Kitty Stewart on a visit to Clacton

Mr Stewart vowed to keep on campaigning for the Tainted Blood Widows – a group of women across the country who, like Kathleen, are calling for compensation payments to be processed before claimants die.

A Catholic and regular parishioner of St Dominic’s and Our Lady of Hal churches, who went to the Rosary Primary School, she will join her husband and son – who died from conditions related to the infected blood products – in the East Finchley Cemetery.

Her husband Angus and two children were haemophiliacs, and had to be regularly taken to the Royal Free.

But in a dark chapter of NHS history, hundreds of patients were infected with Hep C and HIV during clinical trials in the early 1980s and 1990s in hospitals up and down the country.

Angus and Kitty Stewart pictured on their wedding day and, below, a more recent photo

Many patients including the Stewarts were not told they had the debilitating illnesses for more than 20 years.

Mr Stewart said: “My mum was riddled with guilt about what happened to us because she was the one who used to take us to the hospital. It was like a little family up there. She trusted them.

“Some of the other affected mums, they all have this same guilt. Some of them had administered the stuff to their own kids.”

Mr Stewart’s father and brother – both called Angus – died from related conditions. For many years, they did not know why they were unwell.

Mark has survived after undergoing gruelling treatment with horrific side-effects, which struck him down with mental illness that saw him admitted to various inpatient wards.

He said: “I used to say it was like you were on a train and your dad was on the first carriage, your brother on the second carriage, and you’re on the third carriage.My dad had died. Then I was looking at my brother, and how he was.

“Can you imagine what that does to you?”

Born in Hatfield, Kitty grew up in a family of eight living in a two-bedroom house in Royal College Street.

She moved into Helston block in the College Place estate, Camden Street, with her  husband.

Mark later got his own council flat in the same estate.

She worked for Meals on Wheels for Camden Council on top of being a full-time mum.

Mr Stewart said: “I do have some fond memories of childhood. My brother used to fix up bikes and we used to go riding right out over to Epping Forest, and canoeing at the Pirate Castle club. There was always something good going on.

“But every couple of weeks or so, we weren’t allowed out in case you started bleeding. It’d be like, if I had a bleed on a Monday I’d be up the hospital and then I’d be back out on the Wednesday. And then Angus would be coming in. And it was Mum that was dealing with all that.”

He added: “Mum, she was proper mother to me – I can’t knock her – and I had the best relationship with my dad too.”

Mr Stewart has spent years campaigning for truth about the infected blood scandal that was finally laid bare by an inquiry that concluded last year.

But the government has been criticised for a series of delays in setting up a compensation authority to handle £11billion of claims.

Just seven claims have been processed so far – with many dying before getting the justice payments.

It is believed that Mr Stewart is now the last surviving patient of the trials at the Royal Free.

Mr Stewart had been looking after his mum in his old family home since she was discharged home from hospital with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

“I’m glad we got her home. I was holding her hand at the end, and I feel comforted by that,” he said.

“She always loved a game of bingo. Either at the Beacon in Kilburn, or the Mecca in Parkway, she’d been going there since forever, with her sister Nelly.

“So we got her a bingo set and played one last game on the weekend at home. I was the caller and she was dabbing the books. We put a tenner in each and she got one bingo, the last one.”

Mr Stewart, a plumber by trade, said he had sent a scathing letter to Holborn and St Pancras MP Keir Starmer who had provided statements of support but not acted quickly enough to ensure she got the “closure” she deserved.

Ms Stewart had told the New Journal last week how she wanted to pass on payment to her family, this week estimated to be around £500,000.

Details of Kathleen Stewart’s funeral will be made public in the coming weeks.