4:35pm Wednesday 8th July 2009
Former magistrate and councillor Kath Greenwood has died aged 78.
Mrs Greenwood was elected a Baildon member on Bradford Council in 1982.
She became deputy leader of the Liberal group after the sudden death of fellow Baildon councillor Fred Atkinson.
But then she was catapulted into the hot seat when the then Liberal leader Paul Hockney retired and she took his place.
In a story in the Telegraph & Argus in 1985 she said it was not a position she relished and even then she wished she had been able to slide into Council politics more slowly.
A keen follower of equal opportunities for women, she sat on the policy and resources committee and the education committee. She was also chairman of governors at the former Belmont Middle School.
She had been due to become the Lord Mayor of Bradford in 1986 but was defeated in local elections for her Baildon seat by Tory Colin Charles-worth.
Councillor David Ward, the current Liberal Democrat group deputy leader, who has just marked his 25th year in politics, remembered Mrs Greenwood as his first group leader. “Her great strength was her affinity with her local community,” he said.
“She was first and foremost above anything to do with party politics – she was a representative of Baildon.”
Mrs Greenwood, who leaves three sons, Nigel, David and Jonathan, used to run a sweet shop in West Lane, Baildon, with her husband Maurice.
She became a magistrate in 1977 and served on the Bingley and Keighley Bench until she retired in 1997.
Her funeral will be held at Baildon Methodist Church on Monday at 12.45pm. Her family have requested donations in her memory should go to the Shipley & Baildon Blind Welfare Association.
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