THE former MP for North Cornwall, Sir Gerry Neale, died on October 28, aged 74 after a brave fight against cancer.

He was the Conservative MP for North Cornwall from 1979 to 1992.

Gerrard Anthony Neale was born in Bedford on June 25 1941, the son of Charles Neale, a surveyor, and the former Phyllis Harrison. From Bedford School he took articles with a firm of solicitors, qualifying in 1966.

Sensing opportunities in Milton Keynes, he started his own firm — Gerrard Neale, Fennemore & Co — as the first commercial tenant in the new city centre.

When Milton Keynes was given its own council in 1973 he was elected to it, and was mayor for the Silver Jubilee year of 1977, pioneering local charities for the new community.

Gerry Neale fought North Cornwall as the Conservative candidate in October 1974, when he cut sitting MP?John Pardoe’s Liberal majority in half.

The Post reported shortly before Mr Neale won the seat at the age of 37 in 1979 that he was a solicitor with his own practice and was also a director of a chemical packaging business and an adviser to motor vehicle distributors.

He was chairman of of a crime prevention panel and was a comprehensive school governor.

Cora Stephenson — formerly Cora Alford — who was the agent for North Cornwall Conservatives when Mr Neale was MP, said: “What can one say? He was an incredible worker. He loved North Cornwall and the people in it and did everything he possibly could to be of help over any issue that was necessary for North Cornwall.

“He was sadly missed when he lost the seat. It was a long time and he was well known and well liked by everybody.”

The Post reported after the General Election in 1979, in which the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher, came to power, that there was a ‘sense of shock and deep disappointment among the Liberals of North Cornwall at the large swing in votes which ousted Mr Pardoe, who had been MP for 13 years.

The report continued: “There had been, it’s true, a growing feeling of optimism among the Conservative ranks that their candidate, Mr Gerry Neale, was putting up a good fight, that he would certainly close the 3,856 vote gap on Mr Pardoe and, hopefully, might even pip him at the post.

“But no-one, surely, could have guessed that Mr Neale would have won so convincingly, giving the Tories a 3,747 majority — a result which attracted a great deal of attention nationally as well as locally.”

Mr Neale, who was on the right of his party, once said he was proud to call himself ‘a Thatcher man’.

In 1981, he told the Post he had calculated that 15 months after his election he had driven the equivalent of twice around the world on constituency and Parliamentary business.

He estimated that he worked more than 100 hours a week during Commons sessions, but added: “I’m not complaining. I enjoy it thoroughly. If MPs don’t enjoy it then they should get out.”

He received his knighthood in Mrs Thatcher’s 1990 resignation honours.

He lost the North Cornwall seat in the 1992 General Election when Paul Tyler won it for the Liberal Democrats with a majority of just under 2,000.

Gerry Neale was twice married. First, in 1965 (dissolved 2013), to Deirdre McCann and secondly, in 2013, to Lorraine Harper, who survives him with a son and two daughters from his first marriage.

A service of thanksgiving was held in the Parish Church of St Anne, Kew, Surrey, on Monday (November 9).

l Sir Gerry Neale, born June 25 1941, died October 28 2015