Betty Foster, 1927-2025

For those who didn’t know, or know of, Betty, she was one of the founders of this Association and for many years was its primary scorer for our short-range rifle competitions alongside George Lawson (our former Chairman, RIP) back in the days when we had twice as many indoor prone shooters as we do now and two scorers were required. She and George and his wife Jean were great pals. She was 98 last May but still mentally sharp as a tack. She only retired from C&NTSA scoring five years ago and moved to a care-home in Lancaster a couple of years ago as physically she wasn’t that good. She was originally from Manchester but became a primary school teacher in Carlisle and lived in a village nearby since 1993.

Betty started scoring at the NSRA’sNational Meetings in 1992, eventually becoming the chief scorer from the mid-1990’s to 2012, travelling and living in her trusty little campervan after her husband Jim died  in 1999. In 2002 she was given the NSRA’s highest honour by being awarded its Gold Medal for Service to Shooting. Not many people get that one:

She was a feisty lady with a devilish sense of humour and actually did a sky-dive to shortly after her 80th birthday (and raised over £3000 for two NSRA projects and a local hospice).

She was a member of the Cumberland News club and shot there for many years with her husband Jim before retiring from active shooting. She was a good shot too – she won the News of the World Ladies championship (effectively the British Ladies Champion) in 1965 after scoring 399 in a tie shoot following scores of 300 and 400 in the first two stages. She shot for England Ladies twice at Scottish Meetings and once in the GB Randle team.

Her club hosted an NSRA scoring course in 2014 which those in the Association could attend. Betty went along and someone queried why as she already knew all there was to know about scoring. Her reply was “Yes, but I want the piece of paper that says so!”.

She had arranged Pure Cremation and there is no funeral.