Former Didcot town councillor Philippa Giaretta has died, aged 52.

Mrs Giaretta lived in Didcot from 1978, moving to work as a floor manager in the kitchen and lighting departments at the Habitat shop in Hithercroft, Wallingford.

She had worked her way up from a management trainee at Selfridges in Oxford, and developed her role as a training officer.

She married David Giaretta in 1983 and the couple were soon off to America for three years.

Mrs Giaretta was busy as the wife of an academic, looking after their daughter Zoe and doing voluntary work organising fundraising for the Maryland Multiple Sclerosis Society.

After the family's return from the US, she worked for Habitat as a customer service manager. However in 1990, along with many local people, she was made redundant when Habitat moved from Wallingford to Botley.

Mrs Giaretta used her customer service and organisational skills in the voluntary sector, working nationally with the Multiple Sclerosis Society, including a period as a director of the trading arms of the society.

She was also chairman of the Oxford MS Society branch.

She contributed to a County review of care management and was an active member of the Community Health Council.

In 2001 she joined Didcot Town Council, representing Ladygrove Ward for Labour, and became a governor of Ladygrove Park school.

As a wheelchair user she inevitably focused attention on the problems of access to buildings and along paths both for adults with disabilities and parents with pushchairs.

When Dr Giaretta became Didcot mayor in 2003, she was actively involved in representing the town as his mayoress.

Her sunny personality was not eclipsed by MS and she continued to work on the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre patient and public involvement forum, as a trustee of the Oxfordshire Council of Disabled People and as chairman of the Didcot and district access committee.

She had a wide social network of people who will remember her with great affection.

Mrs Giaretta died on November 7 at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

At a Didcot Town Council meeting on Monday, members observed a minute's silence in her memory.