A woman who founded a Brighton-based religious congregation was today being awarded a papal decoration for her services to the Church.

Mother Mary Garson started the Sisters of Grace and Compassion Benedictines nearly 50 years ago.

She now heads a congregation of sisters and lay helpers in Britain, India, Sri Lanka and Kenya.

An apostolic nuncio was presenting Mother Mary with a papal cross at a ceremony in London. The award is one of the Roman Catholic Church's highest honours and requires personal approval from the Pope.

Mother Mary describes herself as "a reluctant convert" to Catholicism. She joined the church while serving in the WRAF in 1946.

She said: "I was the kind of Catholic who left bed just in time to attend the latest possible Mass."

But seven years later, she had an encounter which changed her life. She visited a house in Brighton where a 78-year-old semi-blind woman was caring for her blind sister and a 90-year-old friend, both bedridden.

With a gift of £800 she founded the congregation, now known as St Mary's House, in Preston Park Avenue, Brighton. It still offers accommodation to elderly and infirm people.

Today the congregation, which has its headquarters at St Benedict's, Manor Road, Kemp Town, runs five residential homes and 13 retirement flat schemes in the UK, four foundations in India, two in Sri Lanka and a home in Kenya.