Two weeks ago Jim Day, the former councillor for Tilehurst, passed away. Jim was renowned in Tielhurst as a hard working councillor who always managed to sort out residents’ problems. He was devoted to Tilehurst.

Jim fought in the seond world war serving in the RAF as an aircrew gunner. He entered politics in the sixties, winning a local election in Tilehurst in 1964 and serving as a councillor for the next 40 years winning election after election to Borough and County councils.

In 1964 he began circulating Council Topics leaflets around the ward. It was the first time that Tilehurst residents got to know what their councillors were doing on their behalf in between elections. They always concentrated, as Jim also did, on local issues and Council Topics, produced three or four times a year has been going strong ever since. We had just sent edition 181 to the printers when Paddy phoned to give me the sad news. We are proud to carry on the tradition that Jim started.

As a councillor Jim has helped so many people in and around Tilehurst with all sorts of problems. Over the years he built up a huge reputation for helping people in Tilehurst to the point that even now, some 10 years since he stood down from the council, when we go knocking on doors in Tilehurst there are still so many residents who remember the energetic councillor who got those potholes filled, who blocked off the end of Walnut Way to make The Triangle safer for pedestrians, who wangled invitations to Buckingham Palace for residentswho had done a lot of charity work in Tilehurst. Above all they remember a warm-hearted councillor whose integrity shone through.

There are many of us who have tried to serve Tilehurst as well as Jim did but none of us will ever match Jim’s record of service. We really have lost a great servant of the people in Tilehurst.