PEOPLE are being urged to wear purple for the funeral of much-loved former Devizes Mayor Pete Smith who died on Saturday aged 67.

Hundreds of people are expected at his funeral at St John's Church, Devizes at 3pm on Friday, September 2 and his family says everyone will be welcome at the church and afterwards at a wake in the Corn Exchange.

His widow Sonia and other close family will follow his hearse on foot from their house at Waiblingen Way, Devizes through the Market Place to the church in Long Street.

It is expected the service will be broadcast via a PA system to those unable to fit inside the church.

Mr Smith, who grew up in Peckham in London, moved to Devizes aged 14 and met Sonia just two years later in the old Oasis coffee shop off the Market Place when they were both 16.

She remembers they went on their first date at The Palace Cinema, Devizes, but little about the film. She said: "I was more interested in Pete. We sat in the back row. He was my first proper boyfriend. After I met him I never wanted anyone else. He was the love of my life and never let me down. My parents liked him from the start.

"He was a wonderful husband, father and grandfather and an incredibly hard worker. He loved people and he loved to make them happy."

The couple were married aged 21 in Devizes Register Office and by then Mr Smith already had his trademark bushy moustache. Mrs Smith said: "He grew it when he was 19 and never wanted to shave it off."

She said they were both only about 5ft one inch tall which made them a perfect fit. She said: "Our lips were at the same level so it was just right for kissing."

Mr Smith, who started his working life as a painter and decorator before getting his HGV licence and later working for Wiltshire Council as a sewage operative, leaves three sons Shane, 45, Matthew, 43 and Luke 40, a daughter Nay, 37, and nine grandchildren Jamie, Demi, Tori, Brooke, Spencer, Sydney, Morgan, Mitchell and Lucas.