My friend Mary Smith, who has died aged 74 of cancer, was a bereavement, trauma and relationship counsellor and a tutor and mentor to others. She was deeply rooted in her community in Leeds, West Yorkshire. She was an expansive and warm person whose home was a haven to many overseas students and professionals who were her lodgers.
Mary was born in Tamworth, Staffordshire, to a medical family - her mother, Helen (nee Royal), a nurse, and father, Greville Hoyle, a general practitioner.
She boarded at Lowther College, Clwyd, a private school for girls, and then studied stage management at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. It was here she met, and in 1969 married, Warren Smith, whose career brought them to Leeds, where he became general manager of the Grand Theatre and Opera House.
After the birth of her daughter, Becky, Mary was an early pioneer for the Open University, gaining an arts degree in 1974. After a period selling secondhand books at Kirkgate market, she trained as a teacher at the University of Huddersfield and began working at Park Lane College (now Leeds City College) in 1987, lecturing in travel and tourism.
Stimulated by her interaction with students, she became interested in counselling. She trained as a counsellor at the University of Leeds (Bretton Hall) in 1993 and then undertook additional specialist Cruse courses in bereavement. She felt she had truly found herself in this role. She became a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) senior accredited counsellor in 1995. She began working as a counsellor at Leeds Trinity and All Saints’ College (now Leeds Trinity University) in 1997 and was soon promoted to head the service. She was also a trustee of Leeds Relate and a supervisor for Bradford Bereavement Support.
Mary retired from Leeds Trinity in 2010 but carried on working in private practice and helping to train other counsellors at all the Leeds universities and with local hospices and the Salvation Army.
Always a rock to her family, she met physical challenges to her mobility in recent years with grace and huge determination. She continued to be a lively and imaginative promoter of fun and games, including her community jigsaw club.
Mary is survived by Warren, their daughter, Becky, and her sisters, Christine and Ruth.
