TRIBUTES have been paid to a former county, borough and parish councillor Chris Curtis who sadly passed away on January 20.

Chris, who was the leader of the first group of Liberal Democrats that won seats at Hampshire County Council (HCC), was most recently a councillor for the Baughurst Parish Council.

Current HCC Cllr Adrian Collett, who has served under Chris, paid tribute to the “natural leader who was respected all-round”.

“Chris had Liberal values to his core,” Cllr Collett said.

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“He strongly believed that individuals are the best people to make decisions for their own welfare, success and happiness, together with their families and loved ones, providing that they do no harm to others, and that it was the role of society to help them achieve that, through good public services and welfare support, and not to tell them what to do.

“He was a Liberal in the tradition of John Stuart Mill, not an ‘I’m all right Jack’, or a ‘devil take the hindmost, Libertarian’.”

Chris served on the HCC from 1981 to 1989, representing the Kingsclere and Tadley Division.

“Back in the late 1970s there were no Liberal County Councillors in Hampshire. Then in 1981 the magnificent seven made a breakthrough and won our first seven seats on the County Council,” Cllr Collett said.

“The leader of that group was Chris Curtis, who remained Liberal, later Liberal/SDP Alliance. He was the group leader throughout his term. I joined that group two years later after a by-election and by 1985 our group had grown under Chris’s leadership to 26 members.

“Chris was a natural leader, much respected all round, at a time when the County Council had 18 chief officers, 102 county councillors, covered Portsmouth and Southampton, included sixth form colleges and the fire service and oversaw policing. We also had a youth service in those days.”

For many years Chris worked at Macmillan Publishers in Basingstoke, but prior to moving to the town, he had been the successful agent who got John Pardoe elected as the Liberal MP for North Cornwall.

After leaving the County Council, Chris also gave many years’ service as a borough councillor for Tadley South (1991-93), a town councillor (1983-95)

Having moved from this area, he worked for an international publisher, becoming production director responsible for managing suppliers for the UK, US and other international offices.

In 2010 Chris, and his wife Janet, moved back to the area to live in Baughurst.

He became a Baughurst parish councillor in 2014.

Chris’ funeral was held at St Stephen’s Church in Baughurst on February 9.

“I was proud to be Chris’s best man when he and his wife Janet renewed their wedding vows around 20 years ago, and I am deeply saddened to see him taken far too early by cancer, as happens to so many,” Cllr Collett said.

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“It was a tribute to a great man that St Stephen’s Church in Baughurst was packed for the funeral and it was good to see former County Councillors Warwick Lovegrove, Liz Barron and Tony Barron, the much-respected former Chair of Education, all there to pay their respects.”

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