“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.
