Cricket teams pay silent tribute to lifelong servant

John Towner, of The Crescent, Madeira Drive, Hastings, passed away last Wednesday (September 15) due to increasingly poor health brought on by prostate cancer and heart failure. He was 73.

He was well-known on the cricket scene both as a team organiser, player and umpire for Sandrock, Westfield Bohemians and Bodiam cricket clubs and he was still involved with the running of Bodiam up to his sudden hospital admission four weeks ago.

John was heavily involved in the renowned Hastings Poetry Festival from its inception 40 years ago, acting as compere.

His proudest moment was introducing Spike Milligan to a packed audience.

John worked for the General Post Office in both Rye and Hastings for 37 years before retiring as chief cashier in 1990 at the age of 53.

He also pursued a musical career in his leisure time, which lasted from the 1960s to his final performance at the Beacon Folk club in Tunbridge Wells in June this year.

John formed the band The Mariners, a folk group, which achieved great success in selling more than 50,000 copies of their LP Best of Folk.

He was also a member of folk groups Plumduff and Titus.

From 1970 John took over as main organiser of the Black Horse Folk Club at Telham for 13 years until the club closed in 1983, with a short time in between running the Hayloft Folk Club at Fairlight.

In 1989 John was one of the trio who started what became the very successful Black Horse Music Festival.

Since the mid-1990s his Black Horse Christmasmas Folk Bash Reunions have raised thousands of pounds for St Leonards-based charity St Michael's Hospice.

His wife Karen said: "John enjoyed a very happy and full life pursuing various other interests such as holidays abroad, theatre trips and he was an avid collector of books and autographs.

"He loved his family deeply and leaves his son Matt, three children from his previous marriage, Carol, Kevin and James and grandchildren, Chris, Nick, Tom and Santiago.

"John was a unique character and an inspiration to many, was loved and respected and will be a great loss to all who knew him.

"A big thank you to the numerous cricket teams who organised a minute's silence in John's memory on Sunday."

Josephine Austin, who founded Hastings Poetry Festival, said: "He was compere for the festival for 40 years and will be irreplaceable. Our love and sympathy goes to John's wife and family."

John's funeral will be held on September 29 at 1pm at St Andrew's Church, Fairlight, before a committal at Hastings Crematorium at 2.15pm.