TRIBUTE TO TOM - HE'S EARNED IT!

Tom Glossop, second left, at the end of his final Brigg Town Council meeting before stepping down. With him are Town Clerk Jeanette Woollard, Town Mayor Coun Ben Nobbs (second right) and Deputy Town Mayor Coun John Kitwood.


Tom Glossop’s decision to retire, and not stand in today’s election, ended 32 years’ faithful service Brigg Town Council, which represents our community.
Brigg Blog could not let that length of voluntary public service go by without suitable comment.
Town councillors are unpaid. They do it because they want to help the community and its residents and because of a sense of pride in Brigg, which they hope to see prosper.
Tom is not a Yeller Belly – he’s of Yorkshire mining stock – but Brigg is very much his adopted home.
He came to take charge of our Youth Centre, where his enthusiasm and capacity for hard work soon earned him a growing reputation.
He also realised publicity would help raise the Centre’s profile and spread the word, forging close links with local papers like the Lincolnshire and South Humberside Times and the Brigg Star, both of which then had offices in the town.
To the reporting staff, and others who knew Tom, it was no surprise at all when he joined the ranks of town councillors.
That, in turn, brought him into contact with more organisations and groups in the town, with offers to join the committee or lend a hand – often alongside wife Maureen.
Not everything has gone according to plan, and there’s been no hiding Tom’s frustration in recent years at the wall of red tape, and other factors, which have stood in the way of his pet project, Brigg County Bridge’s refurbishment. But he hasn’t given up hope.
In his parting speech at Brigg Town Council’s final meeting before yesterday’s election, Tom recalled what the authority was like in the late 1970s, when he joined.
Time did not permit him to elaborate to any extent – other than to say it was pretty much one Monday night meeting a month – and that was it. No allotments back then to administer, no Angel Suite and certainly no 3Bs youth project.
Everything had to be crammed into one two or three-hour get-together in the old wood-panelled council chamber at what is now Hewson House.
The debating venue was borrowed, possibly hired, from Glanford Borough Council, which provided a small office, fronting onto Bigby Street, for use by venerable Town Clerk Joseph J Magrath, former head of the Urban District Council.
Back then the Town Council was not very pro-active. It commented on planning applications and voiced its concerns from time to time on some issues to the Glanford authority. But it was run very much along parish council lines.
However, Tom’s colleagues included a number of well-known Brigg figures, notably Ivor Strudwick, Ernie Taylor, George Hewson, Bill Smart, Herbert Forman, Derek Lawtey, Les Watkinson and Jack Wattam (who persuaded Tom to join).
Many of them had served in the days of Brigg Urban District Council, when the little authority governed Brigg, including managing its council house stock, before, in 1974, Glanford was given control of everything - Corn Exchange, Cemetery and Recreation Ground included.
Down the years, Tom has worked tirelessly for, and on behalf of, many organisations and events, including the Music and Drama Festival and the Horse Fair (for which he became unofficial spokesman to the press and point of contact for the travellers).
Tom, of St Helen’s Road, hasn’t completely severed his links with the Town Council.
He is to remain a member of the Community-Led Plan Committee, which is consulting with residents to find out what services, developments and events they would like to see. It’s a sort of blueprint for the future.
This committee is part Town Council, part members of the public. So although Tom’s role must change, he will still be giving the community the benefit of his long experience.
Tom’s political leanings to the left are well-known, but I cannot recall him ever bringing party issues into Town Council proceedings.
Having just joined the Lincolnshire Times’ Brigg office, I went along to Brigg Town Council’s monthly meeting in January 1980 to make my debut on the press bench.
Tom was then one of the newest councillors and lived in Davy Crescent, with wife Maureen and sons Tony and David.
In the 30-plus years since then he has been ever-helpful not only to “yours truly” but to up-and-coming scribes – patiently explaining issues affecting Brigg and ever willing to offer an informed comment.
He’s been Town Mayor, supported Maureen when she was the town’s first citizen and their younger son when he assumed the mantle.
Given his length of service, in recent years Tom, now 71, has assumed senior status on Brigg Town Council – the Parliamentary equivalent being Father of the House.
In times gone by a grateful authority would have elevated him to the rank of Alderman. But, sadly, that is not an accolade Brigg Town Council can award.
Perhaps the most fitting tribute we can pay to Tom Glossop the councillor and people’s representative is that, over the past 32 years, very little of importance to our community has gone on in Brigg he didn’t know about.
His ear has not only been to the ground, for much of the time it must have been glued there!