Tribute to Maureen Smith, who ran the South Bay donkey rides for 50 years

Maureen Smith ran donkey rides on the South Bay beach for 50 years, until 2011. She was also known for her smart dress sense.

Mrs Smith died on January 15. She leaves sons John and Guy, and grandchildren Christopher, Rachel and Daniel.

Born in Scarborough on October 19 1933 to coal merchants Harriet and Ernest Davison, she attended Central School and then the Girls’ High School.

When she finished her education, Mrs Smith went on to work as a telephonist at the General Post Office in Aberdeen Walk.

In 1954, she met her first husband David and they married the following year. In 1955, she gave birth to her first son John.

Guy Smith, Mrs Smith’s youngest son, said: “She was an animal lover. We’ve always adopted rescue dogs from the Whitby Dog Rescue and she was a branch secretary of the RSPCA in Scarborough in the 1970s. She used to organise a lot of the jumble sales and Fundraise.”

In May 1970 Mrs Smith married her second husband Bill. Unfortunately, he died when Maureen was three months pregnant with Guy.

Later on in her career, Mrs Smith worked for her family’s businesses. In the winter she would work for the family coal merchant business, taking orders and looking after paperwork, and in the summer she would work with the donkeys.

Guy Smith said: “Once we were in Pickering, and we popped into Russell’s Café.

“There was a lady who was well known in that café, going from one table to the other asking how people were. We were looking round going ‘who is this woman’?

“She went up to the till, and obviously she was well known to the owners there and she turned around and looked at myself, mum and my brother John and she said ‘I know you, I call you Queen of the South Bay beach’! She knew her because she used to dress quite smartly. It was quite funny that she’d identified her, she used to bring her grandson on our donkeys.”

He added: “She had a really great personality and a great dress sense. Many people would comment about how smart she looked, even while working on the sands.”