Tribute to former mayor who lived life of service

Mr Johnson, who died at Three Chimneys Nursing Home on Friday aged 95, had given a life-time of voluntary service to the community.

This encompassed not only his local government work, including chairmanship of the former Borough Development Committee, but his work for charity and his services to the farming community.

He was a founder member of the South of England Show Society and served on the committee of Bexhill Horse Show for about 30 years.

With his wife and former Mayoress, Marjorie he hosted a memorable series of charity horse show-garden parties on behalf of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association while farming at Sandhurst Barn.

Eric Johnson belonged to a little-known wartime unit, members of whom were recruited and trained in great secrecy.

It was only in the 1990s that he was able to reveal that had Britain been invaded by the Nazis in 1940, he and a select band of colleagues would have operated from a network of hastily-dug and concealed underground hide-outs.

Members were recruited in the main from the farming community because of their deep working knowledge of local terrain.

They were members of the Auxiliary Units, a title made deliberately obscure to hide their real purpose. From dug-outs in woods, members would have emerged to sabotage Nazi military installations.

Their life expectancy would have been extremely short.

Mr Johnson told the Observer in 1994: "We realised we were expendable. There was no doubt about that..."

His phlegmatic approach to this role was typical of Eric Johnson.

Doctors said that he would never walk again after a working accident in 1948. He was paralysed after falling when a bale slipped off the hay-stack he was building.

By will-power he got himself back on his feet but there was an enduring legacy to the accident. His son, Guy, recalled this week: "He had no feeling in his hands. He trained himself to cope with that by picking raspberries!"

Eric and Marjorie ran the former Moor Hall Hotel at Ninfield before taking Sandhurst Barn.

They were Mayor and Mayoress of the Borough in 1968-69 but it is for his distinguished chairmanship of the Borough Development Committee for which Eric will principally be remembered for he was a man of unswerving principle who insisted that every decision was done "by the book."

Eric and Marjorie met through a chance invitation to skate on a frozen pond. They entered the farming and hotel industry jointly shortly after.

Eric recalled at the time of their diamond wedding anniversary: "Moor Hall Hotel have been run by Marjorie's aunt. Her husband was killed in a road accident just as Boreham Farm at Boreham Hill came on the market."

The couple ran the two enterprises successfully, together with a riding stable which supplied General Eisenhower with a war-time mount!

Horse-riding was a passion for both of them and helped Eric's recovery after his accident. Marjorie once recalled: "One of us would ride each side of him. If he began to topple we'd push him upright!"

The couple moved to Sandhurst Barn in Sandhurst Lane in order to cut their workload. But a horse-show where Eric was judging and Marjorie struck up a conversation with the owner of a guide-dog sparked off a series of nine charity horse shows which by 1965 had resulted in 22 guide dogs being trained by the Guide Dogs For The Blind Association.

Eric summed up the couple's philosophy at the time of their diamond wedding.

"We believe you should put something back into life."

Ironically, Eric and Marjorie were only 10 days off celebrating their 69th wedding anniversary when he died.

His funeral will be at Eastbourne crematorium on Wednesday, followed by a memorial service at St Mark's Church at Little Common at 2.15pm..

Eric is also survived by his daughter, Anne, five grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

In a tribute, Bob Matten, for 20 years until his retirement Conservative Party agent locally, said: "Eric Johnson worked loyally for the party and the association in general and, of course, St Mark's Ward in particular and he did so for many years.

"In election work, recruitment and money-raising he was outstanding as he was for the contribution to the administration of the association he made by serving on the executive council and the finance committee and the policy-making committee.

"Eric and Marjorie were both activists for the party - and in the most hard-working and caring way."