IT'S often a fact of death that an obituary barely scratches the surface of an individual's life.

Such is the case with Stanley Marshall today, a man whose contribution to the life of Worcester and the people who've called it home since the middle of the last century was huge.

Perhaps his truest measure was that he went about his work in an undramatic way, quietly making a difference - often huge - to the existence of many people. Indeed, there are thousand in the city who, even as they read Page 2 today, will be unaware of the debt they owe him.

Although he was active in an age when policy took shape in snugs at Labour or Unionist clubs, the hand of central party politics didn't reach so far into local government as now.

At the risk of offending those who commit countless hours to representing the electorate, it would be interesting to cast a thought forward a generation and ponder which of our present councillors will prompt an obituary so praising.

There were some aberrations in Stanley Marshall's time, admittedly - the Rape of Worcester comes to mind - but the city craves someone who can straddle party lines and see what's really important.

Is it being dewy-eyed to reflect that the kind of local government which disappeared in 1974, courtesy of the Redcliffe-Maud Report, had its strengths? Perhaps not.

Look at Worcester today, talk to its movers and shakers and you'll be pushed to find one person with a vision for what the city will become in 10, 20 or 30 years time, let alone a consensus.

There are thousands of people - our minds go to those living in poverty in Brickfields, or besieged by vandals in Tolladine - who need a champion at Guildhall, a person willing to reason at times, to bang heads together at others, in the interests of taking the city's prospects forward.

The passing of men like Stanley Marshall makes you realise that either such people are thin on the ground, or the system is preventing them from making a difference.