A woman who has juggled raising a family, building a home and developing a highly respected career in local politics has been nominated for a Bristol University Centenary degree.

Jenny Smith, a Labour councillor for the last 29 years, is the tenth person to be put forward for the award.

Four of the honorary degrees will be given by the university on July 15 to honour individuals who have given extraordinary service to their community.

Mrs Smith, 70, has worked with everyone from Bristol's great and good to its most needy.

Throughout the 1970s, she balanced a number of voluntary roles with raising her four children in her Stockwood home while her husband was in the army.

She worked in a soup kitchen in St Paul's for Bristol Cyrenians for five years, raised money for the St Paul's Advice Centre and worked on its management committee, and counselled people as a Samaritan.

In 1979, she trained as a social worker at UWE, and began working for the charity Shelter, where she would spend 18 years as a case worker helping the homeless and those in debt.

Mrs Smith's career in politics began when a number of Bristol charities approached her to help bring about change in local authority practices.

Between 1985 and 1996, she worked as the Avon County councillor for Henbury and Southmead, and is a ward councillor for Southmead to this day.

She has also been heavily involved with the Quaker movement in Bristol, gained a degree from UWE in 1998 in health, social work and community care and has served as a school governor on 13 schools in the city.

Mrs Smith was nominated for the honorary degree by Maggie Wilkes, a former Bristol librarian who lived in Stockwood for over 50 years.

Mrs Wilkes, 60, said: "The big thing about Jenny is that she never ever brags about what she does. When I lived in Stockwood, I met a lot of people who were using their careers as a stepping stone to bigger politics.

"But she has never done that, and has stayed in Bristol and enjoyed helping the people of Southmead, which must be a very tough job.

"That is what she wants to do – help people who are disadvantaged. I don't know how she does it all.

"She has combined being a housewife and a mother with a very successful political career, and I want to nominate her for her commitment to making people's lives better in Bristol."

Mrs Smith said she was shaking like a leaf when she was informed about her nomination.

She said: "It is very embarrassing. I have spent most of my life being a doer and not looking for the laurels of it all.

"I am a realist and I don't expect to get an honorary degree because I am a politician, and politicians aren't the flavour of the month.

"People say to me 'you can't', but I always try and change the world for a better place for people to live in, to give people back their lives so they can have control of them.

"But it has always been a two-way thing. All these people I have helped have taught me and made me a better expert and helped me understand life.

"There is someone in the Labour party who calls me 'the wise woman'. I didn't get that name by default, I got it through people.

"I was shocked to receive the nomination. I come from a very humble background – things like this don't happen to people like me."