Jonathon Hawkins
Councillor Jonathan Hawkins
When it comes to local councillors, Jonathan Hawkins is something of a whippersnapper. He’s chairman of Kingswear Parish Council, on the South Hams District Council Executive, and he’s the vice chairman of Devon County Council - all this and he’s only 44, making him the region’s youngest district and county councillor. But he took his first step into local politics when he was just 33.
“I was asked to join the parish council, and as I put down the phone saying I would think about it, I knew I was going to say yes,” Jonathan explained. “I’d joined the Regatta committee when I was 16 or 17 and I’ve been on that ever since. The parish council was the next step. I have always been keen to try to put something back into the community – it sounds like a cliché but we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, we are lucky to live here, and we need to look after it.”
Jonathan lives in Kingswear with his mother, Caroline. He moved to the village with his parents at the age of three, after the death of his Grandmother at the family home in Bournemouth.
Jonathan remembered: “I can clearly recall, at the age of three, walking up our very steep hill to the house in Kingswear. It had just gone to auction and hadn’t made its reserve. I can remember going up to the gate and into the large garden. My parents bought it within a week, and I have lived there ever since.”
He continued: “Kingswear is an excellent place in which to grow up. I had a lot of freedom and a huge garden. I went to school in Torquay, it is now called Tower House, and because it was only a little school it was compulsory that we all became members of the dreadful school choir. We sang in competitions and always lost. We used to ask our teachers why they kept putting us through it, and we were told it was character building. It was terrible!
“But away from school, life in Kingswear was great – the perfect place to be a child.”
Jonathan described being a councillor as hard work and extremely time consuming, yet rewarding. He said being the chairman of the parish council, a role he’s fulfilled for six years, was an honour.
Although he is involved in all aspects of local life through his council work, projects particularly close to his heart are the preservation of Waterhead Creek, the upgrading of the cemetery, the large development at Noss, and the creation of footpaths between the Toll House, Hill Head and Kingswear.
“When I first became a councillor I did so because I was relatively young and felt it was important for someone who was from a younger generation, and still working full time, to be represented. I now realise that the best time to become a councillor is when you are retired and have more time to dedicate to it. Council work takes up more and more of my time and I find myself working very late at night or early in the mornings to get everything done. I’m lucky I have a great team around me at work so I can leave the business in their hands and know it will be ok.”
Work is running four shops – one in Exeter and two in Paignton. Two are fancy dress shops, the others sell gifts and souvenirs. The business is called Mainline, which harks back to Jonathan’s days with the steam railway. From joining the railway in Kingswear as a volunteer, he ended up spending 25 years with the full time job of running all the railway souvenir shops, in those days in Buckfastleigh, Paignton and Kingswear.
Time to relax and unwind is hard to come by, but when he manages to escape Jonathan likes to walk his shih tzu dogs Suzi and Sally, and take holidays in Austria where he skis, reads and enjoys the scenery. Few people know he’s also a vintage bus enthusiast and has five old vehicles, the oldest of which was built 60 years ago. Jonathan had all of them restored and now shows them at rallies, swapping notes with other enthusiasts and grumbling about punctures and struggling engines.
It’s a hectic life for the busy councillor, but he said: “I love it. Kingswear is lucky to have a really good parish council that works well with the community. I feel incredibly lucky to have this life in such a special place.”
First published July 2010 By the Dart