A FORMER Lord Mayor of Oxford has died aged 88.

Nellie Dorothy Comfort was born in Bournemouth on November 3, 1929, as Nellie Dorothy Allen, affectionately known as ‘Queenie’ from childhood.

After school she attended a teacher training college and took up a teaching post at Pinelands preparatory school in Bournemouth.

She met and married Roy David Whorley (known as John) in 1953. They had one child born in 1955 – David Charles Whorley.

The couple eventually moved to Summertown, Oxford, where Mr Whorley took up a position as retail branch manager at Martins newsagents.

It was around this time Mrs Whorley first got involved in local politics. She went onto become a city and county councillor.

After many years of service she was awarded the honour of being Sheriff of Oxford in 1987 and Lord Mayor of Oxford in 1988.

In about 1991 she divorced from Mr Whorley and married John Bailey Comfort.

In 1994 they moved to Ferndown, Dorset where, in 1996, Mr Comfort died. After his death she rekindled her interest in local politics and was elected as a town councillor before later becoming a county councillor in East Dorset. She became a mayor for the second time in Ferndown.

She had to leave her Ferndown home for health reasons in 2015.

Mrs Comfort lived with her son in Banbury before moving to a nursing home. She died from heart failure at the Horton General Hospital on December 13.

She is survived by her son David Whorley, her granddaughters Natalie and Melissa, her great-grandchildren Rowan, Cecily and Theadora as well as several generations of her second family.

A funeral will be held at St Mary’s Church, Broughton, near Banbury at 11.50am, then Banbury Crematorium for 1pm.

Flowers to Edd Frost Funeral Directors, Banbury.