A veteran local council worker is looking back on nearly half a century of helping shape Tavistock’s famed street scene.

The retirement event in Tavistock Town Hall for Ian Lashbrook to mark his 46-years’ service was full of family, friends and ex-colleagues and sometimes emotional. The event was marked by warm tributes from his former bosses and current and past mayors.

Ian was renowned for never saying no to jobs and for being a good work colleague and a friend in and out of work to town council staff.

He was most familiar with the public on high profile jobs perched high up in the council cherrypicker at important events. These jobs include stringing up street bunting for the Lions’ carnival week, Christmas trees on the town hall and festive lights and fitting the colourful hanging baskets to town centre buildings. Before more stringent health and safety laws, he recalls sliding down a rope to put up high-level trees.

Ian said: “I’ll miss everyone. As well as workmates, they’ve become friends in and outside work, which made work something to look forward to. I also really liked the work. There was real teamwork with people you liked and respected.

“It makes me proud to see the results of the projects I was on over the years which improved the town and supported the community. I liked showing my family and others what I’d worked on. I thought about what visitors would see that I worked on. I liked the variety of the job – you could be cutting the grass one moment and have your hands down a sewer the next.”

He remembers how happy one passer-by was when she asked him which of the many identical white lights on the Lions charity Christmas tree was put up in memory of her late husband.

Ian said: “Even though they were all the same, I told her it was second from the top on the left – she went away very happy and said she’d tell the family. That’s what the job is really about.”

Among his many achievements with the council were learning carpentry and joinery to a high enough standard to be trusted to carry out restoration, repairs and new work on the listed historic buildings which are the crowning glory of the town.

He built the former oak doors on the pannier market, the louvres on doors and windows in the town hall and helped build a bridge in Bannawell Park and a temporary bridge to the bowling green which involved floating poles down Tavistock Canal. He also (rather mysteriously) ‘acquired’ the current Meadows park skate park from Plymouth City Council, dismantling it and transporting it by tractor and trailer in four trips across the moor, holding up traffic on the way.

Ian will now launch a more leisurely way of life when he puts his fishing boat (which he restored in his backyard), on the sea. However, he will not be putting his feet up completely, because he will be helping his son Ben with his business ‘Stumpy Services’.