Janet Masson, a much-loved and influential retired Trading Standards Officer, died at her home in southwest France on 19 April 2024. She had been ill with Alzheimer’s for a number of years and had spent the past two years living in a care home. She is survived by her husband David Smyth, a retired Trading Standards Officer, and their two children, Tom and Hannah.
Janet Masson
Janet started her career in Surrey Trading Standards in 1973 after obtaining a degree in Chemistry at Oxford. In 1977 she took a job in Southwark Trading Standards where one of her first cases concerned a sculpture described as ‘cold cast bronze’ which in fact wasn’t made of bronze. This went on to become a test case under the recently introduced Trade Descriptions Act, and is still quoted today.
Janet was involved in two or three appeal cases whilst at Southwark, one of which was a product safety case involving a heated tray. It got to the point that the JPs at Camberwell became a bit twitchy if they got a Southwark case before them, especially if Janet was the investigating officer.
Janet then moved to Westminster Trading Standards and it was there, in 1985, that she met Dave when she interviewed him for a job. However, when Dave started work a few months later he was disappointed to learn that Janet had left and was now working for Lewisham Trading Standards.
Coincidentally, Dave applied for a job at Lewisham and was again interviewed by Janet.
They were married in 1994 and had two children together, Tom and Hannah.
One of Janet’s many roles at Lewisham was to set up a house which was used by the BBC in their Rogue Traders programme, and Janet was often hiding in the attic or behind a dummy wall with the TV crew.
For a while she owned a large American Pontiac Firebird Trans Am car which raised a few eyebrows if she used it for official visits (essential car allowance days!).
Janet and Dave enjoyed motorcycling and often travelled to Germany, Italy and Spain on a BMW touring motorcycle. Janet loved to travel, and they both visited the Philippines many times. When she retired to the Charente-Maritime in southwest France, Janet continued to enjoy motorcycling, and often took trips to the Pyrenees, Spain and Portugal.
A memorial was held on 13 July at the Dulwich Woodhouse in London. Many friends and former colleagues attended.
We offer sincere condolences to David, Tom and Hannah.
After the memorial event, David said: “I want to thank you all for making Janet’s memorial a very special and memorable occasion for me. It’s common in France for the funeral to be less than a week after death so I was in a state of shock at the funeral and nothing seemed real as I hadn’t had a chance for things to sink in. However, yesterday really was a celebration of Janet’s life that I’ll never forget.
“It was a little overwhelming at times so I’m sorry if I didn’t get a chance to talk to you all as much as I would have liked. Thank you all again for making Janet’s memory so amazing.”
This obituary was compiled by Chris Armstrong from details supplied by husband David Smyth and colleagues.
