THE ULTIMATE TRIBUTE..

To Tonbridge today for the Memorial Service in the Parish Church for a good friend.   Mark Worrall OBE and I first met when, as a 14-year old schoolboy he would get off the bus after school and come into my office and talk about cricket.   Now I don`t propose to write a long piece here about Mark`s life and his considerable achievements, for that has been done elsewhere.   Sufficient here just to say that he was tragically taken from us just a few short weeks ago at the early age of just 58 after a long battle with MS and to record the fact that Mark was arguably the most successful leader of any local authority in the country - certainly the Audit Commission thought so.

But this brief note is about Mark, what he was rather than what he did, for he was a genuinely human being, full of compassion, full of understanding, full of determination to help people.   One of the joys of his life was cricket and I know that anyone who has ever played and loved the game, especially on the village greens of Kent, gives to the game and takes from it, qualities that serve well when the stumps are drawn and `real` life resumes.   

Tributes were rightly paid to Mark today by the great and the good of our community and beyond but for me, the ultimate tribute came just after he left us when, in the next edition of the local newspaper, someone who knew Mark was quoted as saying, "There are no words to describe how indescribable Mark was."   I`m not sure there`s any need to add to that.