Queen of the council

CRASHING through the scrub of Southampton Common on her horse Jaronero charged the crime-busting vigilante councillor, with a silk scarf tied around her pretty face.

Kathie Johnson knew the bushes were a favourite hide-out for those she dubs "undesirables", bent on jumping out at passing school children walking home.

The year was 1963 and the police had said they could no longer patrol the land on horseback.

So she decided to ride round the common herself on horseback, charging at the foliage fast enough to jangle the nerves of anyone bent on criminal activity.

At the time she was ridiculed and accused of exhibitionism.

But Kathie Johnson stood by her guns - as she has in virtually every political argument to hit Southampton since just after the end of the Second World War.

She may now be 88 and no longer a serving councillor, but Kathie still visits the civic centre three times a week and is overwhelmingly proud to have held the post of city alderman for over 40 years.

And, believe me, she still has plenty to say about policy decisions.

At last month's mayor-making, the council publicly honoured her record 50 years of devotion to the community at mayor-making.

Wearing her official dress, including frothy neckerchief, she made a short speech as she accepted her certificate.

It was all a far cry from her first election in 1953 to the city's Banister ward.

Then Kathie threw herself into the hectic itinerary the office brings with the vitality and determination which are the hallmark of her decades of public life.

In those days the work was voluntary and she's deeply proud of the fact that she has never claimed a penny in expenses.

But most importantly, Kathie remains the undisputed queen of the council chamber.

She stood no nonsense chairing those fiercely-fought debates about refuse collection, tearing dithering local politicians off a strip when required.

"I was good with the gavel. I was brought up to respect authority and running the city isn't a game, you know," she declares solemnly.

Never afraid of speaking her mind, Kathie brushed off the threats and abusive phone calls she sometimes received as a result of a controversial speech.

She faced up to those prejudiced against female councillors, with a "Women still have to fight for what Mrs Pankhurst got for us.

"I'm sure that we women on the council make up our minds much quicker than the men in spite of what they say."

In 1962 the Daily Echo proclaimed "She's someone you just can't ignore."

If there was a committee in Southampton, Kathie chaired it.

Scouts, schools, planning schemes - she knew all about them.

She opened the very first boat show and hung out with royalty.

Yet, for all her many achievements, it's being part of Southampton's project to establish special schools from which she derives the most professional pride.

And it is fitting that when Kathie, who was a widow, found love second time around it was among the council minutes.

Within weeks of her meeting Alderman and former mayor of Portsmouth Albert Johnson, he'd asked for her hand.

When, in 1969, it was Kathie's turn to be mayor he was at her side for the first months of her year in office.

"He was my escort and I had to hold him back a bit because he wanted to run Southampton as well as Portsmouth."

That summer though, Albert, became ill and, in October he died at the age of 81.

It was a heart-breaking blow - the couple had only enjoyed three years of married life together.

Kathie had only just returned to the civic centre following his funeral when the door flew open and in strode the aristocratic whirlwind that was Lord Mountbatten of Burma.

The admiral had been upset at her loss and came into Southampton from his home at Broadlands in Romsey to provide inspiration and comfort.

Lord Mountbatten also asked with small-boy mischief: "Can I sit in your chair? I've always wanted to sit in a mayor's chair."

Then he told Kathie how, after the loss of his own wife a few years before, he had taken refuge from the sense of loss in "work, work and more work".

"I expressed surprise that he'd known my husband, until he pointed out that he had known him well in Portsmouth," she recalls.

"He was so wonderful to me. After a while, he patted my shoulder told me to get on with my job and off he went."

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What makes Kathie Johnson memorable is that she's always had a habit of doing things differently.

As the city's sheriff she performed the

traditional beating of the civic bounds but, for the first time in 139 years, she did it on horseback, riding side-saddle on Anzac.

She adores fashion and once owned

literally dozens of hats for all those civic jamborees.

However, as an ardent life-long Tory she felt she just couldn't wear red, explaining:

"I know it's silly, but it just wouldn't seem right somehow."

In 1961 she fell over in the civic centre and broke her neck - but that didn't stop her for long.

Now she's got heart problems and walks with a stick after breaking her hip - but it still doesn't stop her rampaging around Southampton by bus on a daily basis.

Yet Kathie didn't grow up here.

She was actually born and raised on a farm in Herefordshire, one of eight sisters (three of whom went on to marry three brothers).

She walked three miles to school each day, and milked dairy cows Myrtle, Vilma and Daisy both morning and night.

Her father, who died when she was nine, was a fervent Tory who smothered his horses in blue ribbons in order to drive his carriage to the polls on election day.

When she was still a young woman Kathie became involved with her other great love, the Red Cross, for whom she has worked for the past 63 years (part of the reason why she became an MBE in 1990).

On her arrival in Southampton in 1947 she immediately signed up as an ambulance driver, ferrying sick military personnel still returning from the Second World War from the docks to hospitals all over the country.

"I used to have my lovely Rolls-Royce but nowadays I'm not allowed to drive.

"However, I love Southampton and like to get things done.

"I like to see it happening and am not good at sitting about at all. I still go out most days. It's 30p on the bus and away I go.

I can get one direct to the civic centre.

All the drivers know me."

Today Southampton has its first female Muslim mayor - it's because of people like Kathie that we now have a 21st-century council.

And though she's rising 89, she remains indomitable.