Tributes to ex-mayoress

Sylvia and her husband Clive rated their mayoral year in 1987 among the happiest of their lives.

Sylvia's death ends a devoted partnership spanning six decades which had seen the couple find time in a busy life together to devote their skills to good causes.

The couple had met as teenagers at Bexhill Youth Centre in 1945. Clive had moved from Iden to Bexhill in 1942 with his parents. Both he and Sylvia attended Bexhill Grammar School.

But their subsequent courtship had to be conducted largely by correspondence. After an apprenticeship with the Bexhill Corporation Electricity Department, Clive decided to join the Army.

Typically of her, Sylvia went with him to the recruiting centre in Brighton. Six of Clive's uncles had been in the Royal Artillery. But the recruiting sergeant said that 6ft 1ins Clive was Guards material and after training in the UK Clive was posted overseas.

He served for three years in Malaya from 1948 fighting the Communist bandits. Twenty-three men in Clive's battalion were killed in the vicious jungle fighting. But as he recalled in a golden wedding interview with the Observer in 2002, Clive was sustained during these difficult times by the faithful Sylvia's letters.

At the time Sylvia was a clerk in Lloyds Bank. With colleagues, she logged Clive's troopship's slow passage home in 1951 via the branch's register of shipping movements.

Romantically, the couple decided that their future would be together while attending the Festival of Britain. They were married at St Peter's Church on September 6, 1952.

Carol and Malcolm were born in the military hospital at Munchen Gladbach during the family's four years in Germany. Sally was born in London after their return.

The couple bought their home in Bexhill in 1966, three years before Clive's retirement as Regimental Sergeant Major.

Clive was ably supported by Sylvia through 15 years of service as a Rother councillor. The couple have been prominent and active members of the Sussex Mayors' Association since their year of office and members of the Guards Regiment Association.

In lieu of flowers at Sylvia's funeral at Eastbourne crematorium, her family invited donations to the League of Friends.