Former councillor dies at 80

    A FORMER Dover Grammar School boy who went on to serve on Kent County Council and as a magistrate has died at the age of 80.
    Dick Standen, who was at the school from 1932 to 1938, was keen on sports and played for the school's football and cricket teams.
    He worked for Pearl Assurance Company as a clerk before serving in the RAF during the Second World War. He became a Sergeant and served in Normandy, Germany and Gibraltar.
    After the war, he joined British Petroleum to work at the oil refinery on the Isle of Grain.
    Married to Audrey (nee Fisher), he lived in Medway and served on Gillingham Council from 1955-56, and was elected to Strood Rural District Council in 1960, becoming chairman in 1962.
    He was also chairman of All Hallows Estates and Holidays.
    A governor of two schools, he stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for Kent County Council at Medway north west in 1975 and 1981, and was elected for Medway south west in 1985, serving for four years.
    In his youth, he attended London Road Methodist Church in Dover, and in later years he was a long-standing steward of Rochester Cathedral.
    A member of the grammar school's old boys association, the Old Pharosians, he was a past master of the Pharos Masonic Lodge in Dover and of the Peace and Unity Lodge at Gillingham.
    He died on New Year's Eve.