TRIBUTES were paid tonight to former policeman, council leader and tireless community worker Ken Saxby, who has died aged 80.

After a 30-year career as a policeman, initially in his home city of Sheffield and later in Teesdale, most people would have enjoyed a well earned retirement.

Instead, Mr Saxby found a new mission in life: working for the betterment of his local community.

In a long and varied career, he: * helped rescue countless walkers stranded on the north pennines after establishing the Upper Teesdale Fell Rescue team; * worked as an assessor for the Search and Rescue Dog Association; * served on the Teesdale Accident Prevention Committee; * became an organiser for Middleton Youth Club; * helped realise plans for a bridge at Beckstones Wath, near Mickleton; * and set up the Teesdale Driver Support Scheme, providing transport for people who would otherwise have difficulty traveling for medical treatment.

Mr Saxby, who lived in Mickleton, was elected to Teesdale District Council in March 1982 just two weeks before he was due to retire from the police force.

The boundaries of his ward, which included Holwick, Hunderthwaite, Lunedale, Mickleton and Romaldkirk, almost exactly mirrored the same area he had policed for the previous eight years.

He remained on the council for 13 years. During a spell as council chairman in 1992, he met the Queen Mother on a Royal visit to the Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle.

John Hinchcliffe, who sat on Teesdale District Council with Mr Saxby, said: "He was a very nice man - very popular. During his time at the council he was very well respected by both councillors and the public."

For many years, Mr Saxby and his black Labrador Ben were a welcome sight for scores of stranded walkers who needed the help of the Upper Teesdale Fell Rescue organisation.

Mr Saxby became interested in search and rescue as a young policeman in South Yorkshire working a rural patch which covered 30,000 acres of the Peak District National Park.

He joined the Edale Mountain Rescue Team and, when the family moved north to County Durham, helped establish a new fell rescue team for Teesdale.

The group’s expertise was put to the sternest of tests in 1988 when Mr Saxby and others were called to Lockerbie, where a Boeing 747 had exploded over southern Scotland.

Many people will remember Mr Saxby as the man who set up and co-ordinated the area’s Driver Support Scheme to transport the sick and elderly.

Geoff Moody, from Barnard Castle, who served on the police force with Mr Saxby and worked with him to establish the volunteer driver scheme said: "We worked together for a long time and kept in touch after we both retired.

"He was very much a local bobby. He was very down to earth and would help everybody he could."

Mr Saxby and his wife Stephanie were married in 1953. The couple have two sons, Jonathan and Timothy.

His funeral takes place at Darlington crematorium on Friday and the family have asked for donations to the Great North Air Ambulance in lieu of flowers.