MARKET traders in York have paid warm tributes to a fellow stallholder who died following a long battle with cancer.

Diane Gray, 46, was a familiar face on Newgate Market for almost three decades, where she ran a nightwear and underwear stall with her father, Trevor.

Yesterday, her parents, and long-term partner Richard Rambridge, recalled her cheerful nature, despite going through 15 years of treatment, following a skin cancer diagnosis in 1998.

Trevor said: “Up to the last few weeks you wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong with her. Her catchphrase was ‘I’m fine, thanks’.

“She was always the last one to set her stall up on a morning because she was always talking to everyone.” He said he still intended to carry on running the stall.

Diane died on March 7. Her funeral took place on Monday, at St Mary’s Church in Strensall, close to where she grew up. The service saw hundreds of mourners gather to pay their last respects.

Richard said: “York Market must have been just about closed on Monday, because all the stallholders were at her funeral. There must have been 100 people standing outside because there was no room inside.”

Paul Barrett, former City of York Council market manager, said he remembered Diane from her first days as a trader and said he was “very sad and sorry she had gone.”

He said: “She was a joy to work with and epitomised a professional market trader.”

Alan Gorbutt, who has run a shoe stall on the market since the 1960s, said: “She will be very-badly missed. She was absolutely lovely. I have been here 46 years and must have known Di since she started. I couldn’t believe it when I heard – it’s such a shame.”

Friend Jane Ledger described her as an inspiration.

“She would say to me she ‘it’s not going to get me down’. She worked right up to a month before she died. She was a fighter.”