ONE of Sark’s most respected residents, Dr Stephen Henry, died on Tuesday morning after a long illness.

Stephen, a retired GP from Wiltshire, who with his wife, Jane, had had a home in Sark for more than 40 years, was one of the inaugural 28 conseillers elected to Chief Pleas in the historic move to a democratically elected government in December last year.

He placed an extremely respectable eighth out of the 57 candidates and not surprisingly was elected at the first meeting of the new assembly as a member of the General Purposes and Advisory Committee, on which he had previously served as a co-opted member. He was also deputy chairman of the Medical Committee.

I first met him nine years ago when he and I were guests at a birthday party and our subsequent encounters confirmed my first impressions – he was a straight-talker (very much what you saw and heard was precisely what you got), who would always seek to do what he believed was best for the community in which he had made his home.

Although he enjoyed getting involved in island affairs, politics did not dominate his conversation. We would talk about sport – particularly cricket, which he loved – and on a wholly personal level, in more recent times, he gave me an enormous amount of support when we discovered that he was about to have lung surgery almost identical to that which I had undergone some time previously. In that respect, I doubt I have ever met a less selfish man. His generosity with his time and support was matched by his generosity of spirit.

He was never afraid to express a dissenting view – we argued on occasions, sometimes face to face and sometimes by email – but what set him apart from some others (thankfully a small minority) was his ability to passionately assert or defend a point of view while managing to remain on excellent terms with those of opposing opinions.

Stephen was also blessed with an abundance of common sense – a quality sometimes lacking in those who often understandably get caught up in the minutiae of trivial detail – and he always struck me as someone who was not only able to see bigger pictures, but also the benefit of conciliation rather than confrontation.

But he was also passionate about many things, not least the right of Sark to determine its own future and policies without outside interference. Only a few months ago, at the midsummer meeting of Chief Pleas in July, he was scathing in his criticism of Guernsey’s Policy Council.

Speaking in a debate on some Bailiwick-wide financial services legislation, he disclosed that Sark had for several months been seeking a meeting with the Policy Council but had been told this could not take place until September.

‘It would be some recompense if the Policy Council were to consider encouraging Sark’s commercial aspirations in gratitude, but I fear we remain strictly a theme park for lobster lunches on Sundays,’ he told the assembly.

It was a typically straightforward and robust Stephen Henry observation. Sadly for the Chief Pleas he sought to serve, and for the wider island community to which he contributed in so many ways, that succinct observation was to be one of his last to the assembly.

His death means there are now two vacancies for Conseiller – David Pollard’s resignation having been announced in September – but because of a Reform Law provision, no by-election will be held unless membership drops below the current 26 conseillers.

The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.