A MAN known as the ‘Mayor of Eynsham’ who ran a funeral home and revived the village’s morris dance side has died, aged 72.

Keith Green was the fourth generation of his family to run Green’s Funeral Services.

He was born on March 13, 1940, and was brought up in High Street, by his parents Mary and Vernon, along with sisters Rosemary and the late Audrey.

He attended Miss Swan’s School in Mill Street, and what is now Bartholomew School. He left school at 14 to help his mother, following his father’s death.

He worked as an errand boy for Harris Butchers in Eynsham, before beginning a stonemasonry apprenticeship, leaving in the same year to train as a carpenter.

He became a retained fireman at the age of 18 and rose to become a leading fireman, before leaving the service in about 1979.

Mr Green met his future wife, Tricia Leighton, in 1962 when she was visiting Eynsham from her home in London to see relatives.

The couple married in London a year later, when he was 23 and she was 22.

Mr Green joined the family’s building and carpentry business, BG Green & Sons, during the 1970s.

During the following decade he became increasingly involved in the family’s other business, Green’s Funeral Services, and helped increase its activity.

By the mid-1980s, the funeral service had expanded so much that Mr Green closed the building firm.

He was an active member of the community and his friends knew him as either the ‘Mayor of Eynsham’ or ‘Mr Eynsham’. In 1979, he helped revive the Eynsham Morris Men and became the group’s first foreman, a post he held until recently.

He was also a Freemason and raised money for the village’s Christmas tree and to build a pavilion for Eynsham Cricket Club.

Each year he would also create a float for the Eynsham Carnival, inspired by topical events. He dressed as a mermaid during the ‘Cod War’ with Iceland, as Princess Anne the year of her marriage and as an old rocker with a walking frame for the Millennium.

Mr Green died on January 15 after battling vascular disease. Almost 400 people attended his funeral on February 1.

He leaves his wife, children Annie and Ian, sister Rosemary and grandchildren Alana, Oscar and Senna.