My father, Rhys Webb, who has died aged 96, was at his core a Welsh farmer. A man of immense energy and vitality, working long days, wasting no time and rarely idle, he was also a huge figure in Welsh local government for several decades.
He became a parish councillor at the age of 21, a county councillor at 32, then, aged 43, an alderman, one of the youngest in the history of that office, always as an independent. He chaired three county councils – a result of successive reorganisations that bounced his beloved Edeyrnion like a football between east and west. From 1979, for 25 years, he was the Welsh Local Government Association deputy presiding officer.
