A FORMER town councillor who was the driving force behind Norton being named Norton-upon-Derwent has passed away in his 100th year.

Cyril Shreeve, who was also was instrumental in the setting up of the Ryedale Branch of the RAF Association, passed away on April 15.

Born in Loughborough on November 20 1922 to Edward and Kitty Shreeve, Cyril was the fourth of seven children.

Following a strict upbringing he left school at 14 and after attending evening classes after work he eventually followed his father into working on the railway as a clerk.

In 1940 Cyril joined the Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) at Kegworth on Fire Watching at night after his day’s work.

In 1943 he volunteered for aircrew but failed the medical and was subsequently called up to the Volunteer Reserve where he trained as an Armourer at Hereford. Posted to Coastal Command as a Leading Aircraftsman he served at RAF Langham servicing torpedoes, loading and arming them on Beaufighters.

Shortly after D-Day he was sent overseas to the Far East, stationed in Ceylon at RAF Koggolo arming Sunderlands with bombs, machine guns and torpedoes.

After VJ Day, Cyril was involved in clearing bomb dumps and later “riding shotgun” on the Forces mail run through Tamil territory.

Cyril eventually returned home on a troopship out of Columbo and was demobbed in 1947, rejoining the railway and eventually moving to Norton to work with British Rail in York.

Here he developed a burgeoning interest in local government becoming a Norton Urban District Councillor.

Later he became Town Mayor and in 1974, upon local government reorganisation, became Norton Town Clerk and heading up the Norton & Malton Road Safety Committee.

He was the principal driving force enabling the town to become Norton-upon-Derwent, helping the district to stand out among other Yorkshire Nortons.

Cyril lost his first wife, Joy, to cancer in 1975 and later their only child, Janet died at the age of 25.

He met and married his second wife, Barbara in 1978 and they moved to Haxby near York in the same year. After many happy years of marriage, Barbara died in 2020.

In 1999, Cyril was instrumental in the setting up of the Ryedale Branch of the RAF Association where he was Branch Representative to RAFA Conferences for many years.

In 2012 he was presented with the National Presidential Certificate by Sir “Dusty” Miller.

After fulfilling the role of Chairman for 20 years 1999-2019, he was elected as President, a role he fulfilled very actively until the pandemic limited all our activities in 2020.

Cyril died peacefully on April 15 at Rivermead Care Home in Norton where he had resided for only a few months.