Born London, April 1, 1924. Died Leeds, July 5, 2008, aged 84.
A communal worker of rare integrity and a passionate fighter for social justice and the disadvantaged, Pat Solk came to Leeds on her marriage.
Starting as a welfare volunteer, she became active in health, old age, the judiciary, arts and business start-ups.
Born Patricia Caroline Pole to an accountant father and Hebrew teacher mother, she studied art in the year between leaving school and joining the Land Army in the Second World War.
Moving to the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the army), she served as a motorcycle dispatch rider and was a driver mechanic in the same unit as the then Princess Elizabeth.
Invited to Leeds by friends, she met John Solk at a post-Yom Kippur dance at the Jubilee Hall and married him in 1946. She enjoyed accompanying him on travels for his family furniture business. He died in 1998.
Pat's communal activity began in 1957 with the ladies aid society. Four years later she moved into welfare through the Leeds Board of Guardians, in which her husband was active in the 1970s and 80s.
She helped build up a band of up to 500 volunteers, taking food and clothing to the elderly and helping with household chores, including cleaning. This led her in 1962 to chair the Queenshill Day Centre project (now the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Centre) through its opening in 1974 and up till 1985.
The Board also sent her to visit Jewish women prisoners in Askham Grange Prison. Becaming involved with other denominations, her influence spread.
From 1967-73 she was a regular prison visitor, sometimes bringing prisoners home to taste family life. She worked tirelessly to create a day centre for the children of parents appearing in court.
A strong advocate of modernising and restructuring the Leeds Board of Guardians, she was in the forefront of the five-year debate to change its name. The new title of Leeds Jewish Welfare Board was narrowly voted for in 1971.
Her friendship with Leeds councillor Bill Kilgallon brought her to the St George's Crypt charity. With her Welfare Board experience in care for the elderly, she was appointed chair of Leeds Council for Voluntary Service and president of Age Concern, Leeds.
She was a magistrate from 1979-94, a member of the family practitioner committee for seven years, founder member of Opera North and, for some 20 years, an executive member of the Leeds International Piano Competition under Dame Fanny Waterman.
At 60 she retired from nearly all her committees, taking her first "paid" job as the first woman chair of Leeds Eastern Health Authority, with a small honorarium. She initiated Jimmy's, the popular TV series showcasing the rok of St James's Hospital.
Supported by the city council and urban grants, she helped small business start-ups as a founding director of the TEC (Training Enterprises Council) Trust and chair of LCVS's dedicated body, Enterprises Ltd, in 1979.
The pioneering scheme succeeded beyond its directors' expectations and Pat was made vice-president of VAL (Voluntary Action Leeds, as LCVS became in the late 1990s) until her death.
Her achievements were recognised in 1986 with an MBE for 30 years' service to the community and city of Leeds, and the Wheatfield's Woman of Achievement award in 1988. In 1991 she received an honorary doctorate from Leeds University and was a governor of Leeds College of Music.
She remained a committee woman to the end, representing residents' rights on the quality assurance committee at Donisthorpe Hall, where she spent her last years. She is survived by two daughters, Jane and Mandy; son, Jonathan; and five grandchildren.
Sue Dorsey, president of Leeds Jewish Representative Council, writes: Pat Solk was a gracious and caring person who devoted her life to the welfare of the Jewish and wider-community. We owe her a huge debt of gratitude.
Sheila Saunders, chief executive of Leeds Jewish Housing, writes: Pat was the first and to date only woman to have chaired the Leeds Jewish Housing Association, from 1983-87. She was one of the most public-spirited citizens this city could ever hope to have. Like the late Arnold Ziff, with whom she worked, she leaves a gap the community may never fill again.