“It’s not common, its popular,” my father, John Smith, would say when asked about his name. For 35 years, John, who has died aged 83, was an ever-present feature of public life in Bury, Greater Manchester, variously serving as the mayor of the borough, deputy leader of the borough council and the council’s cabinet member for finance.
But his passion was housing, as he had himself been the beneficiary of slum clearances in the early 1950s. He was the first chair of Six Town Housing, the arm’s-length management organisation for the council housing in stock, and in that role he gave tenants a real voice and pushed through the government’s Decent Homes Standard.
Born in Jarrow, Co Durham (now South Tyneside), John was the sixth of the seven children of Elizabeth (nee Middleton), who worked in various part-time jobs, and James Smith, a carpenter and joiner at the local shipyards. Only five years before John’s birth, the Jarrow Crusade took place, when 200 men from the town marched to Westminster to protest about poverty and unemployment.
John went to school in Jarrow and Sunderland before becoming the first member of his family to attend university. He graduated with a degree in chemistry from Manchester University in the late 1960s, and went on to teach chemistry at inner-city secondary schools, including Notre Dame and St Gregory’s in Manchester and St Anselm’s in Oldham.
In 1969 John married Stella White, a biology teacher, and they made their home in Bury. There they brought up my three siblings, Stephen, Audrey and Helen, and me.
John’s passion for social justice was there from the start, and his burgeoning interest in politics drew him towards the Labour party. He was elected to Bury council in 1990 in a byelection in the Elton ward, and was a committed Labour activist for the rest of his life, still chairing party meetings shortly before his death.
He served as the mayor of Bury in 2002-03, supported by Stella, a fellow councillor, as his mayoress. They would go on to swap roles during her mayoral year in 2015-16.
My father was a great encourager of talent, nurturing young activists into the often fraught world of Labour politics. These include Lisa Nandy and Jonathan Ashworth, and I followed in his footsteps as the deputy leader of Bury council. John was a generous and warm man who was widely liked and admired, with a wide circle of friends across politics and beyond.
He was a longtime supporter of Newcastle United and loved rock’n’roll – he saw Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and the Kinks live in concert, and Mum and Dad’s jive was second to none. In later years, after we children had left home, they enjoyed travelling, venturing as far as Australia, Thailand and China.
John is survived by Stella, my siblings and me, and nine grandchildren, Georgia, Grace, Alfie, Joseph, Matilda, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Iris and Oliver.
