A former Brighouse MP has died. Wilf Proudfoot, a supermarket boss, was the Tory MP for Brighouse and Spenborough from 1970 to 1974.

He has died at the age of 92.

George Wilfred Proudfoot, who was always known as Wilf, was born in December 1921.

He was a prominent North Yorkshire businessman, well known for his ownership of the Proudfoot supermarket chain and Radio 270.

In later life he embarked on a new career as a hypnotist and hypnotherapist.

He was brought up in Crook, County Durham where his father was manager of the local Broughs grocery shop. Broughs was a family-owned grocery chain serving Northern England.

It was a British pioneer of the self-service model whereby customers took goods from open shelves and paid for them at a check-out desk rather than being served at a counter.

He helped in the shop, performing tasks such as filling blue bags with sugar.

In 1940 Mr Proudfoot was conscripted into the Royal Air Force, serving in the education branch where he was responsible for providing basic instruction in English, mathematics and technical skills to new recruits, many of whom came from an educationally disadvantaged background.

After leaving the RAF in 1946, Mr Proudfoot invested £300 from his RAF gratuity together with funds borrowed from family sources in buying a former foundry building in the village of Seamer near Scarborough and fitting it out as a supermarket .

He developed the business using the self-service and high volume/low price model that he had observed at Broughs in the 1930s.

In 1954 he was able to open a second branch at Eastfield and by the 1960s the business had grown into a chain of six shops around North Yorkshire.

Over the years the chain grew into more than 200 shops but by 2008, most had been sold off to bigger chains.

His political career began in 1950 when Mr Proudfoot became the youngest member of Scarborough Borough Council when he was elected as a councillor for the Conservative Party.

Mr Proudfoot stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in Hemsworth at the 1951 General Election and in Cleveland at the 1955 election.

He was successful on his third attempt, winning the Cleveland seat from the Labour MP Arthur Palmer at the 1959 General Election.

In 1970, he stood in the marginal West Yorkshire constituency of Brighouse and Spenborough, where he ousted the sitting Labour MP Colin Jackson by a majority of only 59 votes.

However, at the February 1974 General Election, Mr Jackson won back the seat. Mr Proudfoot stood again at the October 1974 election, but lost again.

Throughout his two terms in Parliament, Mr Proudfoot was particularly vocal on matters relating to the retail sector.

He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Keith Joseph (minister of housing and local government) between 1961 and 1963.

He leaves his wife, Peggy, to whom he was married for 63 years, sons Mark and Ian, who are joint managing directors of the Proudfoot supermarket company, and a daughter Lyn, and five grandchildren.