I have been asked to write a few words on behalf of the Broad Street Area Community Council concerning our long time Chairman and friend Les Horn who sadly passed away last week.
Les was a champion of the common person, very loyal and protective to his friends and especially to his beloved family, who were constantly at the heart of his life.
Having spent his formative years growing up in a mining and textile area near Huddersfield, his childhood was never easy and the miners strike of 1926 that involved his Father, taught him at a very young age the harshness and inequalities that exist in life and showing him how people can look out for each other and share what they have got to benefit others. These experiences moved him to spend his own life championing the rights of other people.
In his memoirs, Les wrote that: "I was born into a way of life of sharing and giving help when one can without looking for reward, I have found that one gets more pleasure from giving than taking and if many others would share this practice the world would be a much better place to live"
Over the last 60 years many in Swindon have benefited from his strength of character and doggedness, never giving up on a problem big or small or turning his back on someone in need, his door was always open at work and home.
If Les didn’t have the answer you could bet that he knew someone who did and he was blessed with a special gift of ‘persuading’ people to take the right action.
Never afraid to say what he thought was right, or afraid to say sorry if he was wrong, the Community Council and the area and people it covered benefited by an immeasurable amount when he retired from a lifetime of Union work within the Council, leaving him free to give his full commitment to the area he had lived in since moving here from Yorkshire during the 1940’s.
There can be no doubt that Yorkshire’s loss was certainly Swindon’s gain and anybody who ever met Les, and it was many, will ever be able to forget him. He was a truly remarkable, influential and irreplaceable man, his memory will live on and he will be greatly missed by all at the Community Council and everyone else that knew him.
