Margaret Ashton

She was born at Lea Hall Farm, Gateacre, near Liverpool, while her father, Ivan Ambrose, was away fighting in the Second World War. After the war, the family moved to Rosemount Nurseries at Lydiate, also on Merseyside, where she grew up helping her parents.

At Ormond Drive School she became head girl, captained the netball team and was victor ludorum.

On leaving school, she took a commercial course, and then trained as a florist in Southport, and was soon in charge of a shop. However, she returned to her parents' nursery which specialised in chrysanthemums, but added chickens and Christmas turkeys to its range.

When Margaret's sister Kathleen joined the firm, together they soon began to win gold medals with their huge displays at flower shows all over the country, including Southport and Shrewsbury.

On her birthday at the age of 23, Margaret married Tom Ashton of Lawns Farm, Orrell, Greater Manchester, who had just started retailing potatoes and eggs out of a van.

Acting on Margaret's suggestion that he get another van, he soon had a fleet of seven, selling the eggs from their 13000 hens and up to 40 tons of potatoes a week.

Always one with a keen eye for an opportunity, Margaret noticed that deep freezers were arriving in many houses and there seemed an opportunity in the area to provide meat for them.

In the 70s she opened a farm shop and started trading as Aston's Lawns Farm, and produced and marketed beef, pork, lamb and chicken, along with turkeys and geese at Christmas. At their busiest they were selling 12 cattle, 20 pigs and 30 lambs each week.

Margaret's early training in commerce and sales made her the ideal person to manage the shop and grow the business. Their reputation for selling high quality meat soon spread, and it was a triumphant moment when they were invited to supply beef to 10 Downing Street when Margaret entertained President Reagan.

In 1981 Tom and Margaret discovered a breed of cattle in Belgium that was unknown across the Channel. After studying the breed, they made the first importation of Belgian Blue cattle into the UK later that year.

Together they formed a Breed Society (British Belgian Blue Cattle Society), and began its promotion across the country. At the beginning they were subject of much ridicule, but this soon changed and the breed went on to revolutionise the production of beef in the UK. The breed (now known as British Blue) is now the top beef sire in the country.

Margaret, well known in Yorkshire farming circles, worked passionately in the promotion of the Blues and in due course she and Tom were exporting cattle, semen and embryos to America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America, Ireland and Jamaica.

Margaret Ashton is survived by her husband Tom, their her daughter Helen and grandchildren William, John and Lily.