Veteran campaigner Eric Hodges, who was described before leaving Wootton Bassett as "a local legend in his lifetime," has died at the age of 78.

Mr Hodges, who moved with his wife Brenda to Cambridgeshire to be nearer their daughters, spent his final months in a nursing home, but never lost his love of life.

He is remembered throughout North Wiltshire and beyond as a highly controversial character who was often in the headlines and the TV regional news.

Mr Hodges was a Wootton Bassett parish (later town) councillor for 38 years, served for 35 as a district councillor and, after retiring from teaching, was elected to Wiltshire County Council.

At various times he chaired the planning committee of all three councils and was one of three county council representatives to the South West Regional Planning Conference, from which he was appointed to be a national delegate. He was also a member of the Policy Advisory committee.

Mr Hodges was a long-serving vice-president of Wiltshire Association of Local Councils, a member of the consumer watchdog Swindon and District Community Health Council.

He was one of those involved in setting up an area committee for the care of the elderly (which later became Age Concern), the Civic Trust, and the Historical Society. In earlier years he was a project leader in Toc H.

He was Mayor of Wootton Bassett 1981-82 and campaigned vigorously to preserve the market town's distinct identity and petitioned for the High Street to become a conservation area, a measure which was agreed eventually in 1970.

He strove to represent the rights of travellers through the Gypsy Council and, with colleagues, cleaned and converted some disused pigsties where they set up a holiday school for gypsy children. "One of those children went on to gain a university degree," he recalled in later years.

Mr Hodges was a long-serving governor of Wootton Bassett School.

He chaired the joint green belt committee, fought to have the Wootton Bassett Mud Springs designated a site of special scientific interest, and prepared the way for the Brunel's GWR line to become a World Heritage Site.

Mr Hodges attracted warm admiration from some, and bitter antagonism from others.

On his retirement from public office in 1999 he paid a personal tribute to his wife, saying: "There have been times when she was ostracised simply because she was married to me."

He was often embroiled in controversial issues, but always made himself available to the electorate and took up a vast number of cases on their behalf.

Eric Hodges was born in Bristol on August 18, 1929.

After avoiding military service by working in agriculture, he changed his mind and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a state registered nurse with a UN mission in the Far East for 18 months between 1950 and 1952.

After five years in the army he returned to civilian life in 1953 and worked as a staff nurse at Frenchay before training as a teacher. He then worked at a primary school in Swindon.

He and his wife met while on holiday with their mothers and were married at Eastbourne in July 1956. They have three married daughters and, throughout their years in Wootton Bassett, lived in Longleaze.

Mr Hodges became disillusioned with the Conservatives whom he had supported in his youth and contested the parish council election as a Liberal in 1961. Later he was also to serve as an independent in an alliance of like-minded candidates. He topped the poll on many occasions.

At Ely, where his funeral took place at the Free Church on Monday, he had campaigned successfully to preserve a dilapidated historic building and initiated a local magazine.

Music composed by his youngest daughter Nicola Harrison, premiered in January 2005, was played at the cremation service attended by members of his family. Several of the grandchildren, in whom he had inspired an interest in history by visits to museums, paid tributes and one performed a song she had composed for him. His eldest daughter's husband spoke about the many social issues in which Mr Hodges was involved during his years at Wootton Bassett.

Memorial donations for the British Heart Foundation may be sent by September 24 to Ely Funeral Service, 4 Tower Road, Ely, Cambs CB7 4HW.