Shanta Gaury Pathak

Pathak was born Shanta Gaury Pathak Pandit to Gujarati parents in Zanzibar, Tanganyika, on 2 February 1927. In 1945, she married Laxmishanker Pathak, who in 1938 had emigrated from Gujarat in British India to Mombasa, Kenya, where his eldest brother had a small business making sweets and samosas for the city's burgeoning Indian population.

With the onset of the Mau Mau Uprising, and increasing hostility, the Pathaks set sail on the passenger ship SS Uganda, stopping in Kenya and Marseilles, to England in 1956, reaching London with just £5.

Unhappy about her husband's job cleaning the drains for St Pancras Council, Pathak decided the family should start a similar business to that they had in Kenya, running a kitchen from their Queen's Crescent flat in Kentish Town.

Progress was slow, and it was several years until they had enough money to buy a small shop in Drummond Street close to Euston Station, followed by another in 1961, in Bayswater.

In 1962, their neighbours complained about the noise and smell, and the Council gave them three months to find alternative premises. They found a converted mill in Brackley, Northamptonshire, and left London. Later, they relocated to Lancashire.

Over time, the business grew to have an annual turnover of £55 million, and in 2007 was taken over by Associated British Foods for £200 million.

They had four sons and two daughters. Her husband died in 1997, but his will was unclear; prolonged family disputes and various acrimonious court cases followed his death. Pathak was a devout Hindu.