For many people, Bernard and Joy Hood will be a familiar name through their involvement with Ipswich Town, where they have an executive box and have sponsored star players Tommy Smith and Luke Hyam.
The Long Melford couple are also well known for their family business Shear Company, which made chemicals for the ink paint industry before being sold to chemicals producer Johnson Matthey in 1990.
Now Mr Hood, 95, who lived with Joy in High Street, has paid tribute to his wife, who died peacefully at home aged 92 on January 6.
Describing her as a "very attractive lady", he said that as well as her work with the family business, she was actively involved in the community as a yoga teacher and could often be seen in the area around her home taking the family dogs for a walk.
“She was a very attractive lady and was well into her yoga. She used to teach yoga and she used to walk miles with our dogs. She used to walk about three miles a day. She was also a big swimmer,” Mr Hood said.
The great-grandfather met his future wife at a dance in Chichester, where they grew up, in 1946, when he was a colonel in the RAF and she worked as a teacher.
They married a year later at the register office in Chichester before moving together to Selsey in Sussex, and Mr Hood left the RAF to become a pathology lab assistant for West Sussex County Council.
They subsequently lived in Chalfont St Peter in Buckinghamshire before moving to Suffolk in 1972, where they ran their business, with factories at Sudbury and Skelmersdale in Lancashire.
Their work involved them providing services for major companies, such as ICI and they travelled the world together, visiting virtually every country apart from Russia and Japan.
Through their connections with Ipswich, the couple got to know many former players, including Ted Phillips, Ray Crawford, Allan Hunter and Terry Butcher.
Some of the past stars are due to attend Mrs Hood’s funeral service at Holy Trinity Church in Long Melford on Wednesday (January 26) at 11.30am.
“We have had a good life really. We are a really close family and we all get on,” Mr Hood said.
The couple have four children, 14 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here