Dorothy Buckrell - A tribute from old friends
When Sandy and I first joined the Liberals in 1982 the most charismatic and indeed successful local politician was Dorothy Buckrell who has died after fighting cancer for five years. A Byfleet stalwart, she was our County Councillor for 14 years. Just as importantly she was a tremendous recruiter for the party, somebody who succeeded and was for many a role model.
Rosie Sharpley writes: "As a Surrey County Councillor it was Dorothy's suggestion in 1991 that the Parish Council be set up, supported by local residents Mr Lee and Elsie Stranks. The belief quite rightly was that as Byfleet was on the fringes of the constituency, cut off by the M25 , there was a need to tie in all the Community Spirit including the Village Hall and St Mary's Centre as a focus for good".
Dorothy set up Byfleet Community Action about 29 years ago which is so successful that similar schemes have been set up all over Surrey. She also set up Peterbus, a free bus service from the Byfleets to the local hospital: these bright orange buses were added to and four served other parts of Woking.
The Eighties were great years for Liberals and SDP candidates at both Woking and Surrey levels, winning seats every year. This climaxed when the Tories were thrashed in the May 1993 elections. Before May they had held power easily with 55 seats. Now they had 34, the Liberal Democrats 29, Labour 8 and independents 5. It is the first time since 1889 that power has slipped from their grasp. Dorothy was our Group leader and optimistically said that : 'Balanced councils are here to stay. We hope this will lead to changes in what we as a council have to say to central government.' How we wish that had been prophetically true.
Margaret Hill had only just joined the Group. She remembers how skilfully Dorothy handled delicate negotiations with the Tory group, with little support from Labour. It fell to Dorothy to draw up Surrey's Budget that year, in difficult economic times.
Dorothy was Woking's Parliamentary Candidate in the 1992 General Election where we rode high in the polls before Neil Kinnock blew it and sent swing voters running back to the Tories. She managed a creditable second place with almost 18,000 votes but it was nearly something spectacular.
In 1995 Dorothy had to hand in her notice as Councillor when she became the first Director of The National Lotteries Charities Board for South East England distributing funding to Charities. She was Director of the Surrey Care Trust and Secretary to the Board of Trustees from 2007 to 2010. Retirement meant more time for golf and bridge where she excelled, and for her family, John and son Jonathan.
Tony Kremer