My husband, Peter Smith, who has died aged 84, worked in public finance as a local government accountant for councils in the north of England and then served as the chairman of an NHS Trust in Gateshead.
He was born in Huddersfield to Frank Smith, a chauffeur, and his wife, Annie (nee Sunderland), who was in service. After attending Rastrick grammar school he began work as a trainee accountant in the treasurer’s department at Huddersfield council, where he began to climb the public finance ladder, gaining his Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy qualification in 1962 while working at Chester city council.
By 1969 he had moved to Gateshead city council as deputy treasurer. When metropolitan counties were created in 1973, he became deputy county treasurer of Tyne and Wear, then county treasurer in 1980 until counties were scrapped in 1987. While there he negotiated central government funding to construct the Tyne and Wear metro and was heavily involved in securing the arrival of Nissan in Sunderland with a land deal and a purpose-built terminal on the Tyne – both of great regional importance.
After Tyne and Wear, in his early 50s he became chair of the Gateshead Community Health Trust, moving in 1990 to be chair of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, which became a foundation trust under his leadership. He oversaw expansion of the hospital, including the building of the Peter Smith Surgery Centre, achieved without any PFI funding, which delighted him. He retired in 2015 after 59 years in the public sector, having shown total commitment to fairness and fair play.
Peter’s passion for cinema began with wartime children’s matinees and continued until 2020 with weekly trips to Tyneside Cinema, an important ritual. He played football and cricket at a high level and became an enthusiastic member of Yorkshire and Durham county cricket clubs, visiting all the county grounds.
We enjoyed walking trips worldwide but his favourite was always a summer six-day walk in England, planned around Yorkshire cricket fixtures. Covering 75-80 miles, we carried everything, staying in pubs offering good beer, bed and bait. By 2018 we had walked every county.
We married in 2001. Peter is survived by me, two children, Tim and Pippa, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, my daughter, Charlotte, and his brothers, David and Graham.
