One of our most popular and well known town and district councillors is Helen Powell, first elected in 2007 yet already making a mark in local affairs, notably through her efforts to prevent housing being built in part of Bourne Wood.

She not only rallied support through the local newspapers and the Internet but with the support of the Friends of Bourne Wood, also arranged a public protest meeting at the Corn Exchange, persuading both our M P, then Quentin Davies, to dash up from Westminster to take the chair, and Paul Hill-Tout, director of the Forestry Commission, to re-arrange his business schedule to speak with the result that the proposals were finally put to rest.

Helen Nunziatina Joan Tomasellli was born at the village of Thurlby, near Bourne, on 26th September 1953. Her parents were Jean (nee Lyon) and Antonio Tomaselli, a Sicilian who came to England during the Second World War of 1939-45, and she has a brother, Edward and a sister, Stella Rose. Her maternal grandfather, Edward Lyon, was a draper, grocer, coal merchant and photographer who ran Lyons Stores in Church Street, Thurlby.

After attending the village primary and Bourne County Secondary schools, she went on to Peterborough Technical College where she studied fabrics, clothes and fashion, followed by a spell at the London College of Fashion, completing a three year advanced City and Guilds course in creative studies (fashion design and illustration) and achieving a merit grading. She subsequently ran a small boutique in West Street, Bourne, before moving to work for Gordon Thoday Fabrics in Peterborough.

She also taught dressmaking for five years during the evenings while working during the day with the quality control team which supplied knitwear for Marks and Spencer and some years later she became a model at the company’s London headquarters, working in many departments and for other suppliers including Catherine Hamnet and, for a whole season, George Davies of the famous Per Una range until his first launch in 2000 which was filmed for television. This was a top job with top fees and Helen considers it one of the highlights of her career.

Since then, her working life has been varied, as an extra in many television programmes, a house and pet sitter during which time she looked after houses and animals in many parts of the country, running a village post office in Lincolnshire for five years and a 24-acre hill croft in Scotland with horses, cows and goats, working as sales assistant, buyer and window dresser for a firm of designer fabrics, eventually setting up her own business designing clothes.

Helen was married to Alec Powell in 1974 but has been separated since 2002 although she remains firm friends with her husband and they have two daughters, Hannah Jean (1978) and Louise Cherry (1980) both pursuing professional careers away from Bourne. She gave up her work when her mother's health began to deteriorate and settled in Bourne to be near her and now lives in Westwood Drive, starting a window cleaning business (bungalows only) which continues to thrive while still finding time to run a distributorship for the organic healer Aloe Vera which she sends to customers throughout Lincolnshire and Italy. "It is the ideal business that complements my window cleaning, especially in the freezing winter months when it’s too cold to work outside", explained Helen.

She has many hobbies including animals, cycling, papier mache, singing, riding, painting, sketching and cooking and she is also an inveterate traveller, frequently visiting her father’s family in Sicily where she has many relatives and friends and celebrating her 40th birthday with a two-week trip to South Africa to visit her sister which was funded entirely with money raised by singing at local functions, a task which took her nine months.

Helen began taking an interest in local affairs and in May 2007 was nominated and returned unopposed for a seat representing the west ward on Bourne Town Council and now serves on the Standards Board committee and the planning policy workshop.

As a councillor, she has been prominently involved in many issues, notably government moves to sell off our national woodland and its effect on Bourne Wood, the urgent need for a north-east bypass for the main A15 trunk road to keep the town centre free from heavy lorries, an end to high density housing on cramped sites, the removal of cars cluttering our streets and the development of more leisure amenities such as a nature park for the area around Bourne Wood.

Another project has been the production of a DVD featuring Bourne, its history and five of its famous sons and is hopeful that it will eventually be screened on one of the television channels. She is also a founder member of Bourne Preservation Society which is dedicated to saving the Victorian chapel in the town cemetery and other conservation projects, runs a weekly dance class for the disabled at Wake House and is a governor of the Robert Manning College.

Helen now wants to expand her local government activities and in May 2009 she stood as an independent candidate for the Bourne Castle seat on the county council and was narrowly beaten into second place in the poll with 1,004 votes. But in May 2011, she successfully stood for a seat in the Bourne West Ward on South Kesteven District Council, polling 830 votes and displacing one of the three sitting candidates.

She also has an ambitious programme for the future when she would like to see more businesses established, the creation of additional jobs, assistance for the vulnerable in our society and new methods to help provide our children with inspiration and encouragement to become positive, lateral and creative thinkers.

Changes in our local authorities are also on her agenda. "I would like to see all of our councils better run", she said, "with a much lower council tax and no cuts in public services. Being an independent means that I am free from party political pressures and retain the right to vote according to my conscience and as is best policy practice for the area I represent without party leaders telling me what to do. No one has ever, or will ever, influence my vote which is always made according to my conscience. This must be the way forward for all of our local authorities."

In May 2012, Helen Powell was elected Mayor of Bourne and will also serve as chairman of the town council for the next twelve months. She is the 41st person to be elected mayor since the office was inaugurated in 1974 and the 16th woman. Her consort during the year in office will be her friend, John Venn, and she has pledged to work hard in raising money for local charities, specifically the Butterfield Centre, the Outdoor Swimming Pool, the Gateway Club and the local branch of the Alzheimer's Society.

PHOTO ALBUM

The Mayor of Bourne, Helen Powell (left), pictured with her predecessor, Councillor Brenda Johnson, and below Councillor Powell with her deputy mayor, Councillor David Higgs and their consorts Angela Higgs and John Venn (right).

Councillor Powell, when Mayor of Bourne, seen here visiting Baston Primary School, near Bourne, in September 2012 for the launch of a new club to occupy youngsters before and after lessons. She cut a ribbon to open the club and then joined pupils for a slice of cake. The new club is expected to benefit both parents and the children who attend and are able to enjoy a range of craft activities, games or sports in the playground, although there is also space for them to complete their homework. They also get the benefit of breakfast in the morning and a healthy snack in the evening.

REVISED OCTOBER 2012

See also

A bandstand for Bourne     Housing threat to Bourne Wood