Dear Sir,
This is just a quick note, hopefully, to say thank you to everybody who voted for me last Thursday. In so doing, I also want to thank everybody who turned out to vote even if it wasn’t to vote for me. There was a period with all the immoral behaviour of MPs at Westminster when I thought the turnout was going to be abysmal. Thankfully that didn’t happen and democracy lives to fight another day!
Most of all I have to thank friends, family and colleges for their help and support! Not only for during the election but also during the period since my wife died last August, 1 month before our first wedding anniversary. This has been a difficult period and in many ways the election has been a welcome distraction. Although, if I am honest, me heart hasn’t been up for the election fight quite the same way as it used to be. Coming down with Sciatica in the middle of it certainly didn’t help!! But I am content I did the best that I could under the circumstances & know that she would be proud of me.
For me, my priorities have changed considerably and I now have to move forward as she would want me to. That means resuming my career, which has been on ice for the 10 years I have been a councillor. To that end I had already told colleagues that this would be the last election I was going to fight. Similarly, I decided quite soon after loosing Julie that I would never be Mayor. I have actually spent 6 years fending off fellow councillors trying to persuade me to be Mayor but it is something I have never coveted. The one person I would have done it with is no longer here so that’s that!
But more than that, I also decided that my time on the Town Council was drawing to a close. So I will be resigning from the Town Council before my term is up in 2013. It won’t be tomorrow though! I will resign at the end of this civic year. The new Mayor has plenty of exciting projects ahead and I want to help him deliver them. So you will have to be patient for a little while longer!
All the petty playground squabbles on the Town Council have sucked the life from me. Julie kept telling me to walk away but my response was always: “What sort of civic duty would that be & how would that help the town I love!” After 10 years of putting myself out to help other people with their problems, the time has come for me to put myself first.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr David Walker