One of the hardest working council chairman during the past century was Ted Kelby who fulfilled 86 engagements during his year in office with Bourne Urban District Council while at the same time also serving as chairman of Bourne United Charities, an achievement unequalled since. He also set a new standard of liaison between the local authority and industry, business and commerce, as a vital means of town expansion that has since become accepted procedure by subsequent authorities.

William Edward Kelby, always known as Ted, was born in the town on 3rd October 1926 and after attending the Abbey Road primary school, began his working life as a messenger and telegraph boy at Bourne Post Office, later becoming a postman during his thirty year career.

He served with the Royal Air Force during and after the Second World War, from 1945 until 1948, in Britain, India and Japan, returning home to his job with the Post Office, a family tradition because it was here that he met his wife Doris (Dot) when she was employed as a counter clerk at the town post office and their only daughter, Lynette, was to become employed in the telephone manager's office at Peterborough, then under the jurisdiction of the Post Office.

An early interest in politics and the betterment of his fellow man earned him a seat on Bourne Urban District Council in 1961 when he was elected for the North Ward, successfully defending it on three subsequent occasions and holding it for 15 years. During his term as council chairman for 1968-69, he and his wife accepted all 86 invitations they received and today he is best remembered as the man who inaugurated the annual Civic Ball which was first held during his chairmanship on Friday 14th March 1969, a tradition that continues to this day although the host is now the current mayor of Bourne.

During his time on the council, he sat on every committee, being appointed chairman of highways and works, estates and planning and development and also served on the county fire brigades committee and as a governor of the Abbey Road primary school which he had once attended. Councillor Kelby also initiated a series of official council visits to the towns business and industrial companies in an attempt to forge greater links between them and the local authority and this successful liaison was responsible for attracting more firms to set up in the town in later years.

He had many other appointments, particularly chairman of the Bourne committee of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, president of Bourne Police and Fire Brigade social club and a management committee member of the Hereward Youth Club. His wife, Dot, led an equally busy life, supporting her husband during his years as a councillor as well as working for 19 years as manageress of the Bourne Laundry dry cleaning shop in West Street.

One of the highlights of his year in office was an invitation to meet the Queen at a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace on Thursday 11th July 1968 with his wife and daughter.

In 1971, Ted and Dot moved to Beverley, Yorkshire, where they lived for 14 years before returning to Bourne in 1986 to be closer to Lynette, now living at Market Deeping with her husband, Robert, and three grandchildren, and since then have been closely involved with many aspects of community life, fund raising for £21,000 to help buy a minibus for the Digby Court care home and £30,000 for the Butterfield Centre where they both belong to the Friends organisation. On Thursday 16th October 2008, the couple celebrated their diamond wedding by renewing their marriage vows at the Abbey Church exactly sixty years after their wedding day in 1948.

In 1970, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and was sworn in at the Kesteven Quarter Sessions held at Lincoln Castle on February 26th, subsequently sitting as a magistrate on the Bourne bench. "I was greatly honoured by this appointment", said Councillor Kelby, "and I felt that this was one of the best ways that I could serve the community."

Ted and Dot now live in retirement in St Paul's Gardens but he retains an interest in local affairs, attending meetings of the town council as a member of the public whenever he can despite a disability that makes climbing stairs difficult and as a result he has been vigorously campaigning for a change of venue from the Town Hall to a place where access for the physically handicapped is more amenable. Dot, meanwhile, continues working for many many charitable causes as well as serving as treasurer of the Butterfield Centre.

WRITTEN MAY 2007

See also The civic dinner and ball