Sheila Farebrother, who died on Monday morning aged 92, was enjoying life to the last, dressing up as an elf last Christmas and booking an Elton tribute act for her 90th birthday. 

Her friend Sue Ayton, a celebrity agent, told how during the Second World War Sheila delivered milk in a horse-drawn wagon before becoming an army gunner.

She had wanted to become a motorcycle rider in the war but was too small. 

Miss Ayton was a teenager working for Elton’s first record company boss Dick James in the 1960s when she first met Sheila, who was in her 40s. 

Describing her as “an incredible woman” many have dubbed Sheila the inspiration for Sir Elton’s phenomenal fame. 

She said: “It was March 1970 and I remember Elton turning to me and saying, ‘This is my mum Sheila’. Right from our first meeting we used to gossip on the phone for hours, the humour could be wicked but the kindness shone through. As Elton’s career took off we sat together at many of his first concerts and she would be bursting with pride.” 

Sir Elton has revealed how he got hooked on rock ’n’ roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis and Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956. 

A prodigious child, he first started playing the piano aged three and within a year, Sheila heard him picking out Winifred Atwell’s The Skater’s Waltz by ear. 

After playing at family parties and gatherings, he took formal piano lessons aged seven and won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music at 11. 

Sheila continued to encourage Elton with his music, and when she divorced his father Stanley Dwight and married painter Fred Farebrother, the couple were equally supportive. 

They moved into a flat in Pinner, Middlesex, where Elton wrote the songs that launched him as a rock star. 

He lived there until he had four albums in the US Top 40 before moving to Virginia Water, Surrey, where Sheila became his housekeeper. 

The avid Watford fan would phone her every Saturday to catch up on the football scores. 

Miss Ayton, whose clients include Channel 4 newsreader Jon Snow and I’m A Celebrity star Stanley Johnson, recalled how Sheila would put up Elton’s long time lyricist Bernie Taupin at her small flat. 

“When we met she was working as a civil servant and I was a secretary at the company publishing her son’s music. I remember Bernie lived in Lincolnshire at the time and having nowhere to stay, so Sheila let him live with them in Pinner. She used to do his washing. He lived with them for three years. 

“It’s sad to think it was only on Christmas day last year she rang to check I was OK after recovering from a foot operation, forgetting that she was the one getting more frail. Then she sent me a picture of herself wearing an elf outfit cooking Christmas lunch with her friends. 

“What a woman. She was one of the funniest, cleverest, kindest, thoughtful and strong-willed woman you could meet who still loved her makeup, could do crosswords like an Oxford academic and watched sport on television right up until the last few weeks when the cancer took a hold.” 

The pair’s subsequent eight-year feud over Elton’s relationship with David Furnish has been well documented. 

But Miss Ayton insists Sheila made the best of a bad situation: “She was always optimistic and down to earth and surrounded by friends who adored her. 

“Her great sense of humour was evident when she booked an Elton tribute act for her 90th birthday when she was surrounded by so many people – friends going back years and those new found. She had the knack of making friends. All who knew her felt privileged and in awe at her resilience, tremendous spirit, and loyalty.”