COLOURFUL. Controversial. One of Labour’s most vigorous personalities. Labour’s strong man. The Mr Big of Darlington.

These are some of the descriptions that were applied to Cecil Spence during his heyday in the 1950s and 1960s.

Another of them was extremely straightforward. He was “Mr Darlington”.

He shouldn’t, therefore, be forgotten, and although Memories 226 didn’t recognise him on a photograph as he opened EME Motors in Cockerton in the early 1960s, plenty of readers did.

Dennis Hodgson, Joe Kidd, Ken Leybourne, John Taylor, Brian Lidster, Alan Cooke and Mrs P Pinkney were a few of those who got in touch. Ian Wright sent a message from a ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean revealing his identity, and David Oliver wrote: “I remember a well known character in the Covered Market, Alf 'Buck' Howard who had a fruit and veg stall, standing on the top of the market steps, and, like a town crier, shouting across the open market to the throng of shoppers: ‘The people of Lingfield have got some sense. They are wearing black for Councillor Spence.’

“I was just a boy at the time but I remember the incident, although I have no idea what it was all about.”

Mr Spence – known almost universally as Cec – was first elected to Darlington council in 1953, when he was just 29 years old. He represented the Lingfield ward for six years before losing his seat – this must be the ironic announcement that David remembers being bellowed across the market.

He soon returned to the council, representing Haughton for another six years until he lost by seven votes. He re-appeared once more, this time representing Northgate North, which he held until the early 1980s.

He clearly was a very influential figure, being president, chairman and leader of the Labour group, and leading the whole town council.

He was mayor of Darlington in 1977-78, although his estranged wife did not accompany him. He made national headlines when at a function, he whisked away a chair from behind Arts Minister Lord Jack Donaldson just as he was sitting down. His lordship ended up on his undignified backside on the floor.

Mr Spence had higher political ambitions than just being mayor, as when Hugh Dalton, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who resigned after accidentally leaking his own Budget, retired from his Bishop Auckland seat in 1959, Mr Spence missed out on the Labour nomination by one vote.

His powerbase was as chair of the Darlington development committee, and he played a major role in bringing the Torrington and Cummins factories to Yarm Road (Cummins is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year). However, in 1979, he led a campaign to stop Cleveland Bridge opening a £50m works next to Cummins – Mr Spence saying that the vibrations would damage Cummins’ sensitive equipment; Cleveland Bridge saying it would relocate to Scotland if it was turned down. The Bridge won.

Mr Spence was on the board that set up Teesside Airport and he was a prominent member of the North-East Development Council.

His obituary in The Northern Echo said: “Always forthright in his views, he sometimes upset members of his own party by speaking out against policies with which he could not agree.”

Some people were extremely upset. In 1963, the landlord of his favourite watering hole – The Wheatsheaf in Yarm Road – received a phone call from “a gruff voice” issuing a death threat against Mr Spence, which the police for a while took seriously.

His latter years on the council seem to have been battles with ill health – the Echo pictured him in 1981 running the council from a Memorial hospital bed – and with local Labour challenger Jim Skinner.

The rows led to Mr Spence leaving the party in 1983, and shifting to the SDP/Liberal alliance, which ended his frontline political career.

Outside politics, Mr Spence, who took part in a Royal Navy commando raid on Dieppe near the end of the Second World War, was equally colourful. He worked as a machinist at the North of England School Furnishing Company in East Mount Road, and, despite being a leading figure in the Amalgamated Society of Woodcutting Machinists, became works manager and company director, cutting labour costs by 15 per cent in the process. He left the “school furney” in typically controversial circumstances in 1969.

The father of three daughters, he died in 1991 aged 67. The Northern Echo’s editor paid tribute to him: “Cec Spence was a man who rightly earned the name ‘Mr Darlington'. In an age when local government has a tarnished reputation and councillors embroil themselves in petty political squabbles, Cec was different. A true maverick, he was a man who fought passionately for those things in which he believed and was not afraid to stand up against his Labour party leaders if he thought they were wrong. Cec was a man who believed in Darlington and demanded that the council should never cover up its shortcomings in serving it. He will be sorely missed.”

BLOB Many thanks to the scores of people who have spoken to us about Cec Spence. In the mayoral photo, Mr Spence is pictured without the outgoing mayor, Harry Robinson.