Community shares tributes to stalwart Des Harris

The community has expressed heartfelt tributes to Frome stalwart and former councillor, Des Harris, who died earlier this month.

Elected as a Green Party Somerset councillor for Frome Market Ward in 2015, Des was a key member of the planning committee and a driving force behind the Mount Community Garden. As an early member of Sustainable Frome, he played a central role in many of the group’s initiatives.

He also served on the board of Frome Festival and was a governor at Oakfield School from 2008 to 2015, bringing to the role his experience as a headteacher and later schools inspector.

Beyond politics and education, Des contributed widely to community life: he was a Frome Area Community Land Trust board member, a member of a local choir, a regular attendee of Frome Quaker Meetings, and a mentor and supportive listener to many young people in the town.

A friend of Des, Peter Macfayden, said, “Above all, Des was a very kind and compassionate man, with the service of his community as a paramount principle behind all of his activities.”

Mayor of Frome, Cllr Anita Collier, said, “I first met Des when I had not long been elected as a town councillor for Frome.

“He had a genuine warmth as he spoke of the town and the many people he knew, loved and respected. Whenever I bumped into him, he always showed an interest in what I was doing. It wasn’t so much the actual conversations I remember, but his enthusiastic smile and eyes that always twinkled. He just had this way of making you feel that life was a wonderful gift, and that’s why it was always a joy to be around him.”

Cllr Helen Kay, a Somerset Green Party councillor for Frome, said, “Des was a very supportive friend over the years, going out of his way to help me become a Green councillor, helping to organise my 60th birthday party and even encouraging me out of a depression with gardening. Des was always there to give good advice over a homemade lunch whenever I needed to discuss a tricky issue. Sometimes he was like a father to me and I know others have felt the same.

“We moved to Frome around the same time and joined the Frome Community Choir where he was an important part of the small bass section. He knew I had a ‘green’ outlook because I was an active member of Sustainable Frome and he eventually persuaded me to join the Green Party and stand as a councillor myself.”

Another friend of Des, Graham Burgess said, “Des Harris was my friend, mentor and boating companion.  In 2019 he persuaded me to write a memoir (having already written his own) and offered to support me.  We met every fortnight and he’d always unfailingly have read and considered whet I’d sent him in advance.

“Yet Des was not only cultured, intellectual and thoughtful, but he also had a rock-solid, if private, moral framework which was the hidden source of his reliability, community-spirit, patience and humanity, to which others unanimously attest.

“I remember him telling me that the people in the next allotment were gardening in a way he thought most unwise for the conditions.  I asked him if he’d spoken to them. He’d looked surprised and said, ‘No, I’d never offer advice unless I’d been asked.’ That’s a hard thing for most of us to hold to; but Des was steadfast without being in the slightest dogmatic; and kind without being in the slightest ostentatious.”

Many of Des’ friends have shared their tributes via social media.

Pictured: Des Harris