First female mayor was dedicated to public service

AWARTIME evacuee who came to Devon and never returned to London has died after more than forty years service to local government.

Mary Turner MBE (pictured right), an independent, served the Westexe area of Tiverton and was also a county and town councillor. She stood down from politics in the 2015 elections citing health problems.

Mary joined the then Tiverton Borough Council in 1966 as a housewife with three children, concerned about the potential loss of the town’s leat. She went on to represent Tiverton on Mid Devon District and Devon County Council and was the first female mayor and district council chairman.

A widow to the late Ronald, a retired plumber and electrician, she leaves three sons, Thilonen, John and Julien, and eight grand-children.

Born in Westminster, in London, Mary was evacuated to Devon as a child during the Second World War. Speaking to the Tiverton Gazette in 2009 she said: “When my father came down to visit, he loved it so much that he moved the whole family down here. I have never left.”

Mary first became involved with local government in the 1960s when she decided to help with the campaign to open a Tiverton Museum.

“There was great public concern in the post-war period that many familiar everyday objects were disappearing,” Mary said at the time. “I helped a team of three men, councillor Bill Authers, William Pugsey and Victor Broomfield.

“They all thought I was a bit eccentric, but we managed to get the idea off the ground and founded Tiverton museum.

“The people of Tiverton bought in things for us to display, including farming implements, old fashioned clothes, which we displayed on dummies, and army helmets. It is such an achievement, because today Tiverton Museum is a much treasured part of the community.”

It was the great flood of 1966 that led Mary to stand for what then went under the name of Tiverton Borough Council. Many of the houses in West Exe had to be knocked down after the water finally receded and the whole western side of the town was left battered and bruised.

“I was determined to help get a proper flood scheme for Tiverton implemented,” said Mary. “There were not very many young people on the council at the time, so I was quite novel. I think at the time a lot of people on the council were content to be patient, whereas I was not. I liked to get things moving. The flood scheme was my first achievement as a councillor.”

When the Grand Western Canal was under threat a few years later Mary again took up the fight. There were plans to fill it in and build on it.

“I was adamant that this would not happen and went to appeal it, with other council members, at Dartington Hall and County Hall,” she said. “We did lots of research, and managed to save it. Now it is a hive of activity, and an important part of the community and a huge tourist attraction.”

In 1977 Mary became the Mayor of Tiverton and during her two-year stint the town became twinned with Hofheim in Germany.

“Having been an evacuee in the war it was lovely to see the town harmonising with Germany,” she said. “I wanted young people to have a different perception of the country, and to put the war behind us.”

Another of Mary’s major achievements was the opening of the Old Heathcoat School Community Centre in 1997. Over the last three years Mary had been campaigning to keep open community residential homes Charlton Lodge, in Tiverton and Barnhaven, in Bampton.

She said of her life in public service: “Even if you achieve something small for one person you have helped make their life a bit better. I have people coming to me asking for help with things all the time. I even had one woman ring me up on Christmas Day to tell me her husband had run off with a dollybird. Of course, I couldn’t do anything, she just wanted to talk to someone.”