PAT Utechin, who died last week aged 80, was one of a rare breed of 'super-secretaries' to Oxford University high-fliers.

Having served on a Voluntary Aid Detachment in the Second World War, she went up to Ruskin College.

In 1947, she began working for the economist John Hicks, at Nuffield College, before being poached by Max Beloff, then Gladstone Professor of Government and Public Administration at All Souls.

In 1962, she became personal assistant to the philosopher Isaiah Berlin and his wife Aline from their home in Old Headington.

After a break of seven years in Glasgow, she returned to Oxford and continued to work with Berlin until his death in 1997.

Berlin had insisted that, if she returned to Oxford, she would have to work for him again - and only employed temps in her absence.

From the mid-1980s she began volunteering her time at the Gatehouse drop-in centre in St Michael's Street.

In 1951, she married Sergei Utechin, a Russian academic and wartime refugee and during the 1960s worked with him on three books.

She also researched and wrote three well-received books of her own: Epitaphs from Oxfordshire, The Trumpets Sounded; and Sons Of This Place. She worked for many years with Henry Hardy from Wolfson College, until shortly before her death.

She passed away at St Luke's Hospital in Latimer Road on June 18.

She is survived by her only son, Nick.

There will be a private cremation on Wednesday. Her family requested donations be made to the Gatehouse drop-in centre.