Madam Mayor, Distinguished guests, Fellow Councillors, Ladies and gentlemen.
It is indeed a pleasure for me to have the privilege of proposing the nomination of my old friend and fellow ward Councillor Brian Kelly as mayor of our much loved town, Southend on Sea for the next municipal year.
I first met Brian in 1974 when he and his family became near neighbours of ours and at my suggestion after some persuasion,he became involved in Southend local politics ,succeeding me on the Essex County Council and later as a Southend Borough Councillor.
Brian was born in a nursing home on Harrow on the Hill close to Harrow School on this day in 1934 and lived in South Kenton in the neighbouring borough of Wembley
He started primary school at Preston Park School in the first days of World War II. Within a few weeks all schools were closed until Air Raid Shelters could be built. Classes for small numbers of children were held in pupil’s homes for some six hours a week. Eventually full time school resumed and class numbers rose steadily as teachers became scarcer as some were called up for active service and more and more schools were destroyed by enemy action. His eleven plus class in 1945 classes had reached 67 with just one teacher.
During his school years he developed an interest in building solid scale model aeroplanes and when it again became legal after the war to build flying models he transferred his attention to them. Having read many of the government’s war histories he also began to become interested in photography. He asked for his first camera as a Christmas present in 1945. (It had been illegal for civilians to possess film during the war.) Eventually went on to do all his own film processing.
Brian was awarded a scholarship to Harrow County School for Boys and studied there until 1950. His father was by then nearing retiring age and Brian decided that a job was more use than any further study.
Brian started work as a junior clerk at H J Heinz Co. in various jobs until he got his call up papers for military service. He also in those early years set eyes on Ann for the first time as they caught the same train to work.
He was called up for National Service soon after his eighteenth birthday and joined the Royal Air Force. He was selected for aircrew training and send to Officer Cadet Training at Kirton in Lindsay in Lincolnshire for basic flying training on Tiger Moths. He then completed theory of flight and officer training at Jurby on the Isle of Man during the winter of 1952’
He was selected to train as a Navigator and posted no. 2 Navigation School at the Royal Cadet Air Force Station Stevenson Field Winnipeg. Canada. for training. He passed out and in November 1953 and returned to England.
Because the aircraft he had been trained to fly were late in delivery he was posted to the R A F Navigation Training School Thorney Island near Portsmouth as a staff instructor. It was then that he discovered that many of the students still there had been with him at the Officer Cadet Training Unit and that he was expected to instruct them his wings only being two weeks old. This was to prove an intimidating task. His first job was to take a flying classroom full of his former Officer Cadet Training Unit colleagues to Lyneham in Wiltshire to demonstrate a landing aid by talking the pilot down from a cathode ray display. The forecast weather on that day was very close to minimum conditions for this type of aid. His problem was that this aid did not exist in Canada so he had only ever been trained on a simulator.
He set about the task hoping that he sounded a lot more confident than he felt. When the plane got down to the minimum limit for the aid of half a mile he had not had the captain report that he had the runway in sight so he continued the talk down and continued and continued believing the captain had the runway in sight but was just showing the students how good the aid was. Eventually almost as the wheels hit the tarmac the captain took over visually and they landed. Later that afternoon he asked the captain just when he saw the runway and he said when he took over. He replied immediately he saw the runway. Brian then told him that it was the first time he had ever used that aid as the Royal Canadian Air Force only had simulators. He seemed to pale slightly!
One of the students was overheard to say he hadn’t realised how accurate the aid was. Neither of us disillusioned him¬
Brian returned to work at Heinz and although he returned to the same train his vision was no longer on it in the mornings.
It was several years later that he went to a dance at Wembley Town Hall one Saturday evening and he had only been there a short time when his vision reappeared. This time he summoned up all his courage and asked her to dance. They were married less than a year later and they celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary on the 26th April.
Soon after they married Brian left Heinz as he could no longer afford to work for them and keep Ann. He got a job as a rep for a flooring contractor and after a couple of changes to gain experience he joined a near start up company in Shoeburyness as its first sales manage in 1955.
In 1972 the managing director left suddenly and he was asked to either help the directors to find a new one or perhaps would he care to take the job? He accepted on the spot and that meant a move to Southend and the abandonment of his political career in Amersham which had arisen almost by accident.
He continued there until 1994 becoming chairman of the board and acquiring part ownership and sold out when a takeover bid developed with the intention of retiring.
In 1985 he was elected as member of Essex county council and continued to serve there until 1998 when the new unitary council was formed. He was elected to the new council in 1997.
He has also been active in other fields particularly as finance chairman of Southend Carnival, a Trustee of Southend C A B, a non executive director of an N H S trust and as a school and college governor.
As a Southend Councillor his experience and vast knowledge are well recognised as is his caring way of helping anyone in need.
I shall miss his planning advice this year as a fellow member of the Development Control Committee.
Today is a double for Brian as he becomes Mayor and celebrates his birthday and Southend is beginning a new Mayoral Year with a couple in Brian and Ann who will do their best for our town as the new Queen’s representatives.
I am delighted to propose the motion.