TRIBUTES were paid this week to a former long-standing chairman of Tendring magistrates' bench who has died.

Reg Barton, who was also the ex-head of Tendring Primary School for 33 years, was 95.

Praised for his unselfish devotion to others throughout his long and busy life, his concern for community welfare was a common thread.

Mr Barton who died at his home on The Esplanade, Frinton, last Tuesday joined the bench in 1952.

He was promoted from vice-chairman to chairman in 1968 and went on to be re-elected for 13 years when he stepped down in 1981 aged 70.

Looking back he once told the Gazette that he would not agree that he had enjoyed it.

"You don't enjoy sending someone to prison," said.

"But one feels this is a sort of public service. Everyone owes the community something and there are different ways of discharging that obligation."

Mr Barton was among those who dealt with the dozens arrested during the the Mods and Rockers clashes in Clacton in the 1960s.

Another former chairman, Pandora Sarson, who sat with him said: "He was highly respected - I always found him generous and kind."

Soon after stepping down he accepted an invitation to become a chairman of an independent panel looking into grievances caused by the reorganisation of the National Health Service.

All this on top of his role as chairman of the medical services committee of the family practitioner committee and being a member of the Area Health Authority.

Mr Barton was also a founder member and former chairman and president of the Tendring League of Hospital Friends - in 1964 a ward at Tendring Heath Hospital was named after him.

In 1973, he was made an MBE.

During the war Mr Barton was deputy chief warden looking after the safety of 4,000 residents district wide during the bombing.

This led to him joining the special constabulary. Within three years he was made superintendent in charge of more than 350 officers in the Clacton division.

Mr Barton devoted the most time however to his profession - teaching. He took over as head of the Tendring Primary School in 1943 retiring in 1976.

Before that he worked at Walton Primary School and Pathfields School, Clacton.

He was also a keen supporter of Ipswich FC and loved music and English literature.

Mr Barton leaves a widow - he remarried another chairman of Clacton magistrates bench Mary Cole, following the death of his wife seven years before.

The funeral is at St Edmunds Church, Tendring, tomorrow at 2.30pm, followed by a cremation.