If we apply this ancient and sage advice to the very real need for residents to play an active role in the shaping and forming of their heartland, we have the essence of community. As history rightly portrays, successful communities require representation and leadership to fight the challenges to their existence. Many of us, but not all, will be aware of the endeavours and activities of our Parish Council, a group of hardworking and unpaid representatives who selflessly offer their time and expertise for the benefit of our community. I can assure all of our readers that we in Pembury have a formidable reputation in Kent for maintaining our status as being one of the best places to reside in the county. After writing for many editions of the Pembury Village News, I have finally ‘collared’ a leading figure in this record of achievement. The ‘Pembury Person’ for this edition is David Coleman, our Parish Council Chairman. Having lived in the village for nearly forty years, he has contributed enormously by community leadership and diligence to the everyday life that we all enjoy within our special community.

David first came to Pembury in 1970 from London when he and his wife Andrea married and like many others, bought their first house together. They have lived here ever since, with both their children, Daniel and Esther, being born here and attending Pembury Primary School and Mascalls. Both Daniel and Esther now have families of their own but live quite locally; Dan in Southborough and Esther in Tunbridge Wells. The grandchildren, Grace, Finley and Alex, are a source of constant joy and pride and like so many grandparents nowadays David and Andrea love to play a big part in their lives.

Involvement with the Parish Council didn’t start until the 1980s and followed a little after David’s first taste of local service as one of the first elected parent governors of Pembury School. The motivation which set him off on the road to being a parish councillor were threefold. Firstly, the utter unsuitability of the now long-forgotten proposal to build a supermarket straddling land between Beagles Wood Road and The Bachelors; secondly, embryonic development proposals to extend Pembury massively; and thirdly, the Borough Council’s arbitrary decision to stop allowing children’s swimming lessons in their pool. After some heated exchanges with the then Parish Council, Borough Council, developers and assorted ‘others’, David thought he either had to ‘shut up or put up’ and become part of the system to change things.

That was in 1983 and he has been a parish councillor ever since; Chairman for a bit in the 1990s and Vice Chairman for much of the remaining time, then Chairman again in 2005. David fondly recalls fighting a number of elections in the days when there were more candidates than vacancies, and is greatly concerned that so few people are prepared to be involved now. "It is very sad," David contends, "that at a time when so much depends upon the local Parish, from our ambitious developments the recreation ground, community enhancement and safety, Christmas lights and the wonderful annual free fireworks, not to mention working with our Borough Councillors in standing up for Pembury and presenting a local voice, so few are prepared to commit themselves."

During his time as a parish councillor, David has been Chair of the Kent Association of Parish Councils (he is currently a Vice President), member of the governing Council of the National Association of Local Councils and a Government adviser on parish reform. He also serves as parish representative on Tunbridge Wells Council’s Standards Committee. When asked what he considered his greatest parish success, David thinks it was probably his contribution to getting a very tight Metropolitan Green Belt line put around Pembury, which has prevented the village from long ago being submerged into urban Tunbridge Wells. However, he firmly states that all the good work undertaken by the Parish Council over many years has been the result of excellent team work and the marvellously dedicated service of Parish Councillors and clerks. David is also very aware of the huge role played by his predecessors as Parish chair, Dick Miles and Sarah Clark.

So what about David himself and his background? Born in Lancashire, but moved to London at an early age, he grew up there in a council flat on the borders of Tooting and Battersea. He went to the local LCC primary school followed by The Bec Grammar School, where he was a contemporary of 1960s England rugby captain Bob Hillier, pop star Mike Sarne and (briefly) the Conservative Party’s David Davis. Not being as distinguished as they (his only claim to fame in those early years was being thrown out of the Boys Brigade, he says, with a twinkle in his eye) he left school as early as legally possible and entered on a career in local government.

This was a fortunate move as in those days most jobs provided significant educational opportunities to qualify while working. Realising the error of his ways, David knuckled down and was able to qualify professionally, while at the same time building a career. Over the years, he worked for Middlesex County Council and Wandsworth, Lambeth and Newham London Boroughs before becoming Assistant Director of Engineering and Works at the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea in the 1970s. In the 19800s, he moved to Bexley London Borough as a chief officer and when he retired a few years ago, was responsible for the environment, highways, parks, drainage, waste management and emergency services; he also acted as Government and Local Government Association adviser.

Asked about the highlights of his career, David was a bit perplexed. Those were strange times of great change, many for the better but a lot that were not. During the late 1970s there were almost constant strikes and effective industrial relations skills were at a premium. Indeed, he was once thanked for his services by Margaret Thatcher, Tony Benn and the leader of the Trotskyite London Shop Stewards Co-ordinating Committee in the same month (they all then lived in Kensington & Chelsea). The contracting out culture which stopped the regular strikes and greatly improved value for money followed, but this resulted in the almost total emasculation of local government to a point where we had probably the most centralised state in the western world. One of his biggest regrets, David claims, was being part of the team that convinced Michael Heseltine in the mid 1980s to adopt the first key performance indicators. "Just look where that has got public services," he says sadly, "they are now often not based on actual local need but only on meeting some national target."

After retiring from local government in London, David has been an adviser on policy to a number of public bodies and organisations while also sitting as the independent Chair of the Kent Police Authority and Kent & Medway Fire Authority Standards Committees and, until recently, an independent member of the Kent County Council Standards Committee, the KAPC representative on the Kent Partnership and the local parishes representative on the West Kent Partnership. Moving into senior life is very interesting, David affirms, now being acutely aware of the benefits of a free bus pass. Much time is spent with Mencap where he acts as a befriender and advocate for a man with Down’s syndrome. He is also a regular ‘sporting commuter’ to his beloved Arsenal Football Club and Saturday mornings will often see him at the village green, resplendent in red and white, eagerly awaiting the coach for the journey to cheer on the ‘Gunners’.

Talking over the Pembury matters that are always dear to our hearts, David re-iterated that he had always regarded our village as a special place, but he voiced real concerns for the future, particularly the reluctance of people to come forward to fill current vacancies on our Parish Council. Leadership has been described as often taking people not where they want to go, but often to somewhere else that will prove to be a better place. This can sometimes be the loneliest place in the world but as Ralph Waldo Emerson states "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail". We are fortunate that in Pembury David Coleman has laid a very fine trail indeed.