LOOKING very like Winston Churchill - though he might not appreciate the analogy -- Councillor John Walsh (centre) came back from Buckingham Palace with the insignia of his MBE.

The Leyton Labour politician who has been serving on local government in Waltham Forest for 40 years was given the award in the New Year's Honours List.

Mr Walsh took his brother Ernie (left) with him to the Palace and Carole Chandler who was his deputy mayoress when he was deputy mayor of the borough.

"It was a wonderful occasion. No-one deserves the award more," said Miss Chandler. "And John even looked like Churchill when he walked up to the Queen!" (LAW-5).

WALTHAM FOREST Mayor John Walsh is painting the town red-- and it's making the temperature rise.

On Monday, Mr Walsh took up his brush to make his mark on the specially-built giant barometer to show the degree of funds raised for his charity appeal.

This year, the Mayor is hoping to raise £17,000 for a mini-bus for disabled and handicapped people.

So far £1,125 has been donated towards the cause and Mr Walsh was given the opportunity to show his artistic talents by filling in the amount on the barometer in the Town Hall grounds, Forest Road, Walthamstow.

And you, too, can help Mr Walsh reach new heights with his paint brush by donating money to the charity and pushing the total to the very 1987 of the scale.

For information on how, ring the Mayor's secretary on 527 5544.

Mayor second time round

By Pat Stannard

THE next Mayor of Waltham Forest is to be veteran politician Councillor John Walsh.

The new honour comes close on" the heels of his visit to Buckingham Palace to receive his OBE award from the Queen.

Bachelor Mr Walsh has chosen family friend Carole Chandler to be his Mayoress, and between them they bring a wealth of experience to the roles -- they were deputy mayor and mayoress of the borough in the years 1986 to 1987.

In addition, Mr Walsh served as mayor of the former borough of Leyton in 1959/60 and as deputy in Waltham Forest in 1979/80.

In his 42 years as a Leyton councillor, Mr Walsh has built up a reputation for straight-talking and for his desire to revive the community life he knew in his younger days.

He told the Guardian in January. "The spirit we used to have has gone.

"Much is said about stress these days. It was always there, but in earlier times we shared our tensions. Now people have become very isolated."

His year in office may give him the chance to re-awaken some of that camaraderie.

Mr Walsh has chosen Councillor Jack Kaye. as his deputy for his year in office. Widower Mr Kaye has not yet decided whether to invite anyone to accept the courtesy title of deputy mayoress.

The new appointments will be confirmed at next Thursday's annual meeting of the council.

LOCAL politics has been the central feature of John Walsh's life for the past 42 years.

Not bad for a man who set out with the intention of serving a three-year stint as a councillor.

Now his long service has been rewarded with and MBE in the New Year Honours list.

The outspoken veteran of the Labour benches is a Leyton man to the core, though his family roots lie in Ireland, the homeland of his parents.

He attributes his bluntness and tendency to go where angels fear to tread to his Irish heritage.

He was born in Millais Road and moved a couple of streets away to his present home in Downsell Road when he was six.

The move to stay with relatives followed a family tragedy, the death of his railway plate layer father in an | accident at Bethnal Green. y. "People forget that this was always a railway community," he said this week. "We were close to Stratford works of the LNER and most men round here worked there."

Mr Walsh followed the local and family tradition when he became an apprentice and later a qualified steam erector at Stratford, repairing and rebuilding engines.

He joined the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers in the '30s and went on to become a union official for over 40 years, an achievement for which he was presented with a silver badge and certificate in 1978.

Membership of the Labour Party followed in 1942.

It was at Leyton branch meetings that he complained about local councillors living outside the area. So fellow members threw down the - gauntlet: "Put your money where your mouth is."

He took up the challenge and stood for election to the former Leyton Council in 1946, meaning to do just a short stint.

But election followed election. He became chairman of council committees, serving too on the Essex Education Committee.

And in 1959 he was chosen Mayor of Leyton.

Mr Walsh was opposed both to the creation of a larger borough and to the formation of the GLC predicting--"and I've been proved right," he says -- that they would bring about a diminution of democracy and a growth of bureaucracy.

If amalgamation had to come, he favoured Leyton being joined to Newham. "Our links were always much more with Stratford than with Walthamstow and Chingford," he says.

But in 1964 he moved into the council chamber at Walthamstow.

He has been there since except from 1968 to 1971 when he was temporarily unseated in his Cathall ward.

Between 1973 to 1977 he also served on the GLC where with his usual candour he berated his colleagues for allowing too much officer control.

Between 1986 and 1987, Mr Walsh was Deputy Mayor of Waltham Forest.

Now 74, he says: "I'll go on as long as the local branch wants me to stand for election."

'Trapped'

Despite his loyalty to the party, Mr Walsh is not altogether happy with the organisation of modern policies.

"When the present Labour council took control, I tried to persuade them to go back to the old way of having one third of the council stand for re-election every year.

"As things are now, anyone can come off of the streets into the local party and stand for election. You know hardly anything about them and if they're no good you're stuck with them for four years.

"Or if they're not happy working in the council, they're trapped for four years."

'Isolated'

Looking back, Mr Walsh thinks the biggest change has been the attitude to community life.

"The spirit we used to have has gone," he said. "Much is said about stress these days.

"It was always there, but in earlier times we shared our tensions. Now people have become very isolated."

Mr Walsh doesn't know why he has been chosen to receive the MBE.

But Carole Chandler, a family friend he chose for his Deputy Mayoress last year, is in no doubt.

"He is the most well-loved and respected councillor Waltham Forest could have. He has a motto -- people matter most --and his whole life has been devoted to the borough and its people."

A FEW inches more of red paint will make a happy man of Waltham Forest Mayor John Walsh,

He will know then he has achieved his ambition-- to buy a £17,000 tail-lift minibus for use by home bound people in the borough.

The "thermometer" outside the town hall now shows that his charity fund for his year in office has passed the £15,000 mark in record time.

Mr Walsh aims to buy the bus by March and use any money collected after that to pay maintenance costs incurred by the Volunteer Service Bureau. The organisation's elderly bus, needed all week long, is on its last legs.

COUNCIL stalwart and former borough Mayor, John Walsh, has died aged 90.

Mr Walsh, who was a councillor for over 47 years, died at Whipps Cross University Hospital on Monday.

Tributes to Mr Walsh, who was Mayor from 1988 to 1989, have flooded into the Guardian from the people he knew and worked with during his time as a Labour councillor and community figure.

A minute's silence was held in memory of Mr Walsh by councillors at Tuesday night's cabinet meeting at the town hall.

Family friend Carole Williams, who was both his Deputy Mayoress when he was Deputy Mayor for the second time from 1986 to 1987, and his Mayoress the following year, said she was saddened by his death.

She said: "I knew John since I was a child of about seven. He was a friend of my father's, who was involved in the Labour Party, and he watched me grow up.

"He could be an old goat but I loved him dearly. His motto was People matter most' and that is how he lived his life.

"He was most loved and respected and he cared about people. He was like an encyclopaedia on Waltham Forest, especially Leyton. John was a character and he will be missed."

Bachelor Mr Walsh, who was also the Mayor of the former borough of Leyton from 1959 to 1960 and Deputy Mayor from 1979 to 1980, was awarded an OBE in 1988.

He was chair of governors at Downsell Infant School in Leyton until last year when the school amalgamated with Downsell Junior School to create Downsell Primary School.

Cllr Terry Wheeler chairman of Leytonstone Community Council and a councillor with Mr Walsh in Cathall Ward, said Mr Walsh will be remembered as a "unique" character.

He added: "John fought tirelessly for people in Leyton and Leytonstone and causes he believed in for over 50 years.

"John was an exemplary public servant as councillor and mayor of both Leyton and Waltham Forest."

Former councillor and colleague, Mohammed "Sam" Bangladesh, said he once tried to persuade Mr Walsh to write his memoirs.

He added: "I have lost a good comrade, humanity has lost a good soul and the town has lost a famous son."

The John Walsh tower block in Leytonstone was named after Mr Walsh, who worked for many years on the railways for British Rail.The funeral will be held at St Francis Church in Grove Crescent Road, off The Grove, Stratford, on Wednesday at 12.15pm.