THROUGHOUT the past year Councillor Keith Deakin has devoted all his time and energy to his role as Mayor of St Helens.

Every day of the week was taken up with mayoral duties and although it was non-stop hard work, Keith says it was a great honour to represent the borough.

After handing over the Mayoral chain to fellow councillor, Alex Worth, Keith said: "I was the 96th person to be the Mayor of St Helens since 1868 - a great honour when you think there have been several thousand councillors in that time.

"Although being Mayor is a great honour, it also a great burden because you need to make sure you carry out your duties with the dignity of the office because you can't let the people of the town down, and I think I succeeded in that.

"1995/96 was a great year to be Mayor.

"The highest point for me over the last year had to be Wembley and watching Saints bring the cup back - which made me the first Mayor in 20 years to welcome the Challenge Cup back to St Helens.

"It was the perfect end to a great year, which saw the Mayor's Charity Fund for the Macmillan Nurse Appeal raise a staggering £25,000, for which I am extremely grateful to the generous people of St Helens."

He added: "Being the Mayor of St Helens entails a lot of hard work, it's not just driving round town in the Rolls Royce. Some days I'd be out of the house at 8am and wouldn't arrive back home until 2am the following morning - more often than not I'd wear at least two suits and shirts a day, and I suppose you could say I was changing and shaving on the hoof.

"I also saw the town which I represented develop economically and I helped to cement a relationship between St Helens and the former East German town of Leipzig, which in many ways is similar to St Helens, but still has a long way to go economically.

"I wish Councillor Alex Worth all the best for his Mayoral year ahead and if my experiences are anything to go by I am sure he will enjoy the 12 months ahead."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.