Bertha “Betty” Shane, née Shayngesicht, as a young woman

THE family and friends of a 92-year-old woman killed in a fire have paid tribute to her, describing her as a thoughtful poet, spirited teacher and devoted friend.

Bertha “Betty” Shane, 92, died from smoke inhalation after a blaze at her home in Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead, in January.

A faulty lamp set papers alight, a coroner’s inquest was told on Friday.

Born in Antwerp, Ms Shane was described during the hearing as a “fiercely independent” woman who arrived in England as a Jewish refugee during the Second World War, having escaped on one of the last boats out of Belgium.

Ms Shane’s niece Dawn Rowland told the New Journal how her aunt ­ had escaped with her mother and siblings just as Nazi forces invaded their country.

Ms Shane’s father – with whom she shared a close bond – remained in the country, waiting for his brother. “This proved a tragic decision as the Nazis closed the border and both he and his brother were deported and murdered in Auschwitz,” Ms Rowland said.

Ms Shane was deeply affected by her father’s death. Her niece added: “All through her life she never stopped thinking and talking about how he used to cuddle and take care of her and how close that bond was. “In many ways he was the love of her life.”

In the 1940s, Ms Shane’s family settled in England. When London was evacuated during the Blitz, Ms Shane was sent to Leicestershire.

There she proved herself a promising student and, despite a lack of formal education, she quickly won a scholarship to a local school.

On her return to the capital she trained as a clerk to help financially support her family. An autodidact, she also taught herself to speak French in her spare time.

Ms Shane built on this learning when she found a post working for a French family, spending two years in Paris during the 1950s.

“From what she told me, she remembered this time fondly and I suspect – as a young and pretty woman – had a lot of fun there,” Ms Rowland said.

In the late 1950s, she married and moved to Israel to live with her husband, although the marriage broke down when she had to return to England after becoming seriously ill.

It was at this point that Ms Shane trained to be a teacher – a career choice that proved to be her “greatest and most satisfying achievement,” according to Ms Rowland, who added: “She had a lifelong passion and love for English and poetry and this is what she desperately wanted to give to her students.”

Ms Shane went on to work in secondary schools across London for over 22 years, and her students continued to write to her after she retired in the 1990s.

Dudley Miles, a friend of 40 years, remembers Ms Shane as someone who “would get chatting to people and become instant friends – she was very outgoing.”

Ms Shane was curious about the world, often attending lectures on literature, art, history and politics with Mr Miles, with whom she was writing a memoir about her years spent in Israel.

But her particular love was poetry. Some of her work was published in a volume called Contrasts with the French poet Judith Bessac. “She was a very good poet,” Mr Miles said.

The inquest heard Ms Shane died after a free-standing halogen lamp caught fire and set a number of papers in her home alight.

It was unplugged when the fire brigade arrived and a bucket of water was found nearby, suggesting Ms Shane had attempted to put the fire out herself.

This behaviour was in keeping with Ms Shane’s character as “a fiercely independent woman”, the inquest heard.

Carbon monoxide poisoning was given as the cause of Ms Shane’s death by pathologist Dr Liina Palm. Dementia was noted as a secondary cause of death, because the underlying condition may have impacted on Ms Shane’s “action taken and her ability to recognise risks,” coroner Richard Brittain said.

Doctors, social services and the London Fire Brigade (LFB) had been supporting Ms Shane in the months leading to her death.

The LFB had identified her as a “person of risk” because she used portable heaters and slept upstairs without a telephone.

On a previous visit they had fitted fire alarms in her home. The coroner said that while there is “certainly learning to be had” from the tragic circumstances surrounding Ms Shane’s death, he was “satisfied” that the authorities had done their best to support Ms Shane.

Mr Brittain noted the lamp that caused the fire is no longer in production, so did not pose a threat to others.

• Ms Shane was buried with a full minyan at Bushey Jewish cemetery in February.