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

Keith Green, right, was the fourth generation to run Green’s Funeral Services.

He was born on March 13, 1940, and was brought up in High Street, Eynsham, by 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 in Witney Road.

He left school at 14 to look after his mother following his father’s death.

He was an errand boy for Harris Butchers in Eynsham, before beginning a stonemasonry apprenticeship, leaving in the same year to begin a carpentry apprenticeship.

Between the ages of 14-18, Mr Green was involved in the village’s Scout group.

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 visited from her home in London to see family at the Talbot Inn.

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 and 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 reform the Eynsham Morris Men and became the group’s first foreman, a position he held until recently.

He was also a member of the Oxfordshire Free-masons 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, which would be themed around topical events.

The event saw him dress as a mermaid for the Cod War, as Princess Anne for her marriage and as an old rocker with a Zimmer frame for the Millennium.

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

Mr Green leaves his wife Tricia, children Annie and Ian, sister Rosemary and grandchildren Alana, Oscar and Senna.