Vera’s off to the roundabouts in the sky

CHAMPION fundraiser . . . Vera Smith

The woman nicknamed “Dobby Horse Vera”, “The Angel of Tommyfield” and just plain Aunty Vera has died aged 78.

Vera Smith was beloved by generations of children visiting Oldham’s Tommyfield Market for her hand-cranked roundabout.

But she was also a staunch supporter of local charities, particularly Dr Kershaw’s Hospice, and was named Woman of Oldham in 2007.

The veteran market trader came from a family of travelling fairground people who ran the amusement at the market for over 130 years.

And in a fitting send-off, a vintage hearse will carry her coffin from Oldham Parish Church, along Albion Street past the market, and her former home in Henshaw Street, before travelling to Oldham Crematorium.

Vera was born in a caravan on The Green in Oldham town centre, where Primark now stands, one of six children.

Her mother was a traveller and her father came from Henshaw Street, but her grandparents were also travellers from Oldham and came back to the town to christen their 13 children.

Vera worked on the market from the age of 10 and took over the roundabout from her mother when she was 12.

She was married twice, first to Harry Walton. When their three children, Peter, David and Frances, were small she used to finish at the market, make their tea then do an evening shift as a spinner at the Coldhurst Mill.

Then she married John Smith, and together they went into the licensed trade, best remembered for running the New Museum pub in Henshaw Street.

It was there that she began her lengthy fund-raising campaign for Dr Kershaw’s, when consultant Naru Hira started to raise money to convert the former cottage hospital to a hospice.

Her fund-raising was inspired by John’s death from cancer and also a nephew who had leukaemia.

She suffered a serious injury which left her partly paralysed after she slipped on ice outside her home in the town centre in 2000.

She was forced to wear a neck brace and a steel halo around her head, when she was called “The Angel of Tommyfield”.

Initially family and friends kept the roundabout turning, but because Vera, then 68, was forced to retire she started proceedings to sell the business. Sadly vandals burned the roundabout down before the sale was completed.

But Vera continued her Dr Kershaw’s fund-raising on Tommyfield Market on Wednesdays, with a group of friends nicknamed the Dream Team.

She fought off two bouts of cancer, and had been well for around eight years after her accident.

But her daughter, Frances, said her health had deteriorated over the past 12 months, and an operation on her neck had not been successful.

She died at the Royal Oldham Hospital on Monday.

Funeral details are still to be confirmed but it is expected to be on Wednesday.

Brian Hurst, the hospice’s fund-raising manager, said: “She was absolutely fantastic for the hospice.”