Born February 25, 1923 in Easter Road, Wilhelmina's friends and family soon shortened her name to Mina, which was how they would know her throughout her life.

Her mother, Helen, and father, George, both worked in printing and moved the family to East London Street shortly after Mina's birth to be closer to their work in an Edinburgh publishing house.

After attending Leith Academy, in 1938 Mina went to work for Tyre Scotland at the tender age of 15. Working as a typist, she made friends with everybody and earned a new nickname.

"She was called 'Nippy' because she was always darting about making the tea," said daughter Anne Paget. "Her oldest friends would continue to call her that throughout her life."

Like many young women of her generation, Mina's career was interrupted by the war.

She volunteered for action in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the successor to the famous Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

She worked in a London map room supervising RAF communications operations but, after two years of service, her father asked her to come home to look after her mother.

Back in Edinburgh, she had two children, Anne in 1958 and a son, Tom, in 1957. The children's father died in 1962.

She continued a clerical career, working in a surveyors' office throughout the 1960s. Her final job was at the social work department's court section in Parliament Square, where she typed up legal cases until she retired in 1988.

"She worked hard all her life, full-time even when she was bringing up my brother and I," said Anne. "And she had loads of animals to look after as well – a budgie, cats and dogs."

There were welcome breaks from the work, though. In 1982, she won a Sunday Post competition which had asked readers who they would most like to see in the world.

She chose her younger brother, George, who had emigrated to Australia when he was 20 and never returned.

She had recently heard that he had been involved in an explosion, so she was anxious to assure herself of his health.

The Sunday Post flew her out to Adelaide for two weeks, although she did not see him again until 1989.

In 1978, she moved from East London Street to Farrer Terrace, which inaugurated her involvement with the London Road Foundry Bowling Club.

She quickly demonstrated an insatiable appetite for the sport by her very regular attendance, continuing up until the days before her death.

"She died on the Tuesday," said Anne. "But on the Saturday before she played 28 ends and was given a round of applause by all the men present. On the Sunday she played again, and Monday too."

She was also well known at Craigentinny Bowling Club, where she was a regular and formidable competitor at the dominoes and whist tables.

She died peacefully on July 8.

• In yesterday's Real lives we incorrectly named physician and anatomist Eldred Walls as Eldred Wells. We apologise for any distress caused.