REG Little, a man who touched the lives of so many in the community, has died aged 88.

Electrician, local historian, Kingswear churchwarden and all-round good character, he led a full life, driving and going out daily until about a week ago.

Reg died last Tuesday morning in hospital in Gloucestershire, where he and his wife, Sheila, had moved to an apartment to be closer to their family.

Reg came to Dartmouth as a boy in 1932 and volunteered in Air Raid Precautions throughout the Second World War. 

He could remember dealing with the carnage after the bomb dropped in Duke Street when he was only 15 years old and an apprentice electrician. Tragically, just five days later, Reg and his brother, Frank, lost their own brother Bert in the bombing at Noss. 

Reg was very involved with the Scouts as a boy and after his National Service he played a key role in the Kingswear Sea Scouts, giving up his own annual holiday to take the boys on camping trips with their boats up the river and later on Dartmoor. 

Reg was an adventurer - whether taking the family camping to Europe in 1960, when he drove his Vauxhall Wyvern to Venice where he was stationed in the Army just 15 years earlier, or taking his first ride on the back of a motorbike on his 85th birthday. 

Another of his achievements was to build his own house. ‘Dad was always up for a challenge,’ said his son, Robert.

‘What an amazing life he enjoyed.

‘He will be sadly missed by all those who loved and knew him; my mother, my brother Peter and I, and our children and the wider family as well as everyone in the wider community who he touched in his lifetime as an electrician and history stalwart in Kingswear and Dartmouth.’

In his later years, Reg became an enthusiastic member of the Kingswear Historians group with a particular interest in his experiences growing up in wartime Kingswear.

His reminiscences can be found online at a blog to which he enjoyed contributing.

He was also a stalwart of Kingswear Church and of the Royal Engineers Association.

Reg died on February 16, and leaves a wife, Sheila, sons Robert and Peter and his seven grandchildren and two great granddaughters. 

His funeral will take place at Kingswear Church on Wednesday, March 9, at mid-day and afterwards in Kingswear Hall. 

Chairman of Kingswear Parish Council Cllr Jonathan Hawkins said: ‘I knew Reg from childhood.

‘He was a truly great Kingswear resident and a true gentlemen who was loved by all of us who had the honour of knowing him.

‘He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of Kingswear and will be missed by all.’