Tributes to Sonia Bray: A lifelong champion of Harborough and Leicestershire's voluntary sector

Sonia Bray: A lifelong champion of Leicestershire's voluntary sector

February 14, 1950 – September 13, 2026

Sonia Bray, who has died aged 76, spent more than 40 years in the thick of community life in Market Harborough and across Leicestershire — running voluntary organisations, campaigning for the services local people relied on, and playing her part in local politics.

She was born in Stockport on 14 February 1950, the daughter of parents who had come to England from Eastern Europe after being rescued from prisoner of war camps at the end of the Second World War. The family mixed easily with everyone around them, though as the child of parents from elsewhere she knew early on what it was to be a little different. Her mother lived with a mental health condition and spent periods in hospital, at a time when that carried real stigma, and for stretches of Sonia's childhood her father raised the family almost single-handed. She knew from the inside what caring for someone costs a family, and it stayed with her.

Her father spoke good English and became an unofficial advocate for the town's Eastern European community, writing to officials on their behalf; Sonia, then at secretarial college, did the typing. She was doing that same job, in one form or another, for the next 50 years.

She moved to Leicester in the mid-1970s, settled in Leicestershire and joined the Labour Party — a membership she held for the rest of her life. From Ratby she took her first steps into voluntary work at the miners' welfare office in Coalville, then at the heart of the Leicestershire coalfield. She had no car, so a big, burly miner collected her every morning. She talked about that community for the rest of her life, and about how well people there looked after one another.

Market Harborough became home. Maternity leave took her to a Church of England mother and baby club; within no time she was running it. She became secretary at the Pisces Centre, the community centre on Coventry Road, and through that work was invited onto the steering committee setting up Home-Start in Market Harborough — the family support charity, founded in the town in 1984, which pairs trained volunteers with parents of young children who are struggling. She helped appoint its first organiser, and impressed the scheme so much with her own volunteering that they offered her a job. She was also a volunteer befriender to many local families over the years.

From there she moved to the Harborough Volunteer Bureau — now Voluntary Action South Leicestershire — first as assistant manager, then as manager. She set up a string of new projects there, typically by finding the need first and the money afterwards. One was the Welland Park playscheme: three weeks of free summer sessions for more than 300 children, paid for by a county council grant she secured herself.

She spent many years at CLASP, the Carers Centre — the charity set up in 1994 to support unpaid family carers across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland — joining as an advocacy support worker and rising to centre manager. She went on to work for Caring with Confidence, the training programme that helped carers understand the care system and their own rights, and which was ranked among the top three such courses in the country. She was enormously proud to have been part of its launch. She finished her working life at Healthwatch Northamptonshire, the independent watchdog that gathers patients' experiences of health and social care and puts them in front of the people who run the services.

Her influence went wider than any single charity. She helped set up a county-wide Leicestershire voluntary sector working group to get organisations collaborating rather than competing for the same pots of money. She chaired the Leicestershire Voluntary Sector Health Forum, was a trustee of CVS Community Partnership, and she was also chair of the Leicestershire Carers Forum. She was trusted by mayors, council leaders and MPs of every political colour, and she used that access on behalf of people who had none.

She was never afraid of a fight. She founded SOBBS — Save Our Baby Beds — the campaign that kept Market Harborough's maternity beds open, drawing the then Shadow Health Secretary Robin Cook to the town. When the threat returned years later the campaign was lost, but she never regretted trying. She took the microphone at Leicester's Clock Tower for the county-wide NHS alert group formed to defend Leicestershire's hospitals. As a member of CND she ran a stall in Market Harborough showing residents, street by street, what a nuclear strike on their own town would do. She served as Leicestershire's representative on the Independent Broadcasting Authority, travelling to London every quarter to advise broadcasters and hold them to account.

She stood for Labour in Market Harborough, knowing perfectly well they would not win, because she thought people deserved the choice. The Labour float she helped enter in the Harborough Carnival was pelted with eggs. She found that funny for the next 30 years.

She chaired the governors at Fairfield Road CofE Primary and served on its PTA, was a governor at Ridgeway Primary and a governor of Kettering General Hospital, which runs services in Harborough. In later years she volunteered with Harborough in Bloom, the group that has kept the town winning medals since 1996.

She moved to Desborough in 2014 and set about getting involved there as well, joining the Desborough Labour Party and volunteering with Desborough in Bloom. Market Harborough remained her town, and she stayed as passionate about it as ever.

She received a Women of the World award and a lifetime achievement award for her voluntary sector work, and in July 2016 was nominated for the lifetime achievement award at the Leicester Mercury's Heroes of Leicestershire awards.

Retirement mostly involved meeting friends in Harborough's coffee shops: Waitrose for a cuppa and a cake, Langton Garden Centre with her friend Carol, and the Settling Rooms with her friend Dave.

She never judged anyone, and she was not afraid to stand up for people who could not stand up for themselves. She was a formidable woman and a good friend to a great many people. The many tributes posted on social media since her death speak of her kindness, her passion and her sense of fighting for what is right. They have come from every walk of life, which is the measure of the mark she made on people.

Sonia is survived by her children Katharine and Andy, by Helen and Richard, and by her grandchildren Chloe, Elliott, Jay, Tyler, Lucas, Tom and Emily. She died on September 13.