Tracey Green died at the Rowans Hospice on October 24 from secondary breast cancer. She was 57. For most of her adult life, Tracey ran vintage clothes shops in Portsmouth and Southsea including in Albert Road and Osborne Road, and most recently opened King of Vintage in the Cascades shopping centre two weeks before the first lockdown in 2020.
Tracey and her best friend Karen Winslade met as children, as Tracey would stay with her grandmother in Knowsley Crescent in Cosham during the holidays, round the corner from Karen’s house. ‘We were like sisters,’ Karen said. ‘We met aged eight and remained lifelong friends. She was full of life and happy, a happy person all the time. Tracey was a special lady, kind and genuine, always smiling with a positive outlook, never to be beaten by a challenge.
‘When she had a hard time she always tried to give things a go. She never thought she would be beaten by cancer, and she was a bit like that with the rest of her life – she would always bounce back and come back fighting. She didn’t let things frighten her.
‘She will be missed terribly and will never be forgotten by those who had the privilege of knowing her.’ Tracey trained as a journalist at Highbury College and was The News’ community editor between 2002 and 2004, establishing community news pages and looking after local correspondents. She also worked in Lincoln on a local paper.
In 2009 she worked for Liberty’s department store in London and retrained as a TEFL teacher, before working at the London School of English in Kensington. Karen said: ‘She loved this work but tired of London and returned to Portsmouth to follow her love of fashion and started working on vintage markets across the south coast.’
She is survived by her mother Pat Brown, of Southsea, her brother Vincent and half-brother Chris, as well as her partner Tony Nesbit and her beloved dog Daisy. Her father Roger, who died in December 2015, was a journalist, and started at The News before working for the Daily Mirror and teaching journalism at Highbury. He was also a TV wrestler called The Graduate, fighting Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy in the 1960s.