Members of the Society will have learned with sadness of the death on 29th October of John Silverthorne, a founder member and lifelong supporter of the Society. John was born in London on 16 January 1920, educated at Highbury Grammar School, apprenticed as a G.P.O. engineer and worked in London during the "Blitz" He was called up to the RAF in 1943 and drafted to Birmingham on a radar mechanics course where he met his wife Nancy, who by chance was on the same course; they married in 1944. John served with Pathfinder Squadron in this country, and susequently in Ceylon with Lancasters. He came to Lichfield in 1958 as Midlands Area Manager for a company manufacturing electrical precision instruments and by then with four children, lived in the Leasowe. Since his teens he had been an active member of the Labour Party and after the war he resumed those activities resulting in being elected to City and District Councils representing the Chadsmead Ward. Eventually he became Mayor in 1975-76.

In 1976 John was appointed Secretary of North Staffs Community Health Council (the watchdog of the NHS). The contacts he made during these years with Voluntary Organisations at National, County and Local levels to be put to good use upon his retirement in 1985 and enabled him to become involved in many Committees connected with Child Health, Welfare on Discharge from Hospital, Relate, the Volunteer Bureau and many others. In addition he was Chairman of Netherstowe High School for 23 years. John loved Lichfield.

S[tanley] T[aylor]
November 2002