BACK in 1986 a traffic warden, once unjustly branded the most hated man in Britain, wrote his last ticket just before Christmas.

Les Brockwell pounded the mean streets of Teignmouth for 21 years and booked hundreds of errant motorists.

‘Some motorists might think it is the best festive news they could wish for, but Les does have his fans, especially among the traders and business people of the town,’ an article declared.

When they heard about his imminent retirement, one restaurateur loaded his new Rolls Royce so Les could be taken in style to a champagne lunch at a local restaurant.

And a local taxi driver who had been booked many times by Les volunteered to chauffeur him to the premises.

The local mayor, Cllr Brian Fossey, went along to give him a civic send-off, and just to prove that he has got a heart, Les stuck farewell Christmas cards instead of tickets on the vehicles of his final ‘clients’.

The champers was a farewell gesture from Mike Saunders, boss of the Pickwick Restaurant.

As he toasted the country’s best known warden, Mike said the popular image of Les was all wrong.

‘He is firm but fair. He has often come in and warned me to move my car – and I know that if I don’t I will be booked. We all take chances and sometimes we get caught.

‘Les also came in on another occasion and told me my car had been on double yellow lines for so long, it was almost welded to the spot. He has a great sense of humour, and I shall miss him.’

Roy Burt of Roma Taxis admitted that over the years his firm had been given more than 20 tickets by Les, but he was still pleased to drive him to lunch in the Roller.

‘Les has always tried to be helpful, and at least you can have a joke with him.’

Traffic warden number 20 was one of the first to be recruited in the region and he is probably the longest serving in Devon and Cornwall.

But it was only in the final years of of his ‘reign’ that he began making the headlines nationally and internationally.

The time he threatened to book a funeral cortège and was condemned from the pulpit by the vicar has gone down in traffic warden legend. It earned him the banner headline Dead Nasty in one of the tabloids.

He followed up by showing no favours to a ‘Wish You Were Here’ crew from the popular television travel programme when they filmed in the resort. Local hoteliers were so upset they officially complained to the police that he was harming the tourist trade.

Others, however, thought he had brought more publicity to Teignmouth than it could ever buy. He became a tourist attraction himself, with coach drivers pointing him out to trippers!

Les was philisophical about all the fuss he has caused, and said the vilification in some quarters does not bother him.

‘But the Dead Nasty headline almost gave a neighbour of mine a heart attack. He was on holiday and spotted a newspaper on the stand, and the way it was folded he just saw the picture of me and the word dead. He thought the worst had happened!’

‘Some holidaymakers come down and try to wind me up because of the publicity, but I do not rise to the bait.

‘I have no trouble with the locals who know me, and I think I have issued less tickets than the average warden. I don’t need to. I would rather warn people and besides if people know I am around they are usually more careful about parking.

‘Some motorists have tried to run me down and threatened me, but there have been many lighter moments as well.

‘I will never forget the expression on the face of one motorist who had been parked illegally in the same spot for days. When he came back there were so many tickets on the windscreen he could not see out of it!’

Before he took up the job Les was a shopkeeper in Torquay for a few years, so he appreciates the problems traders face. He has heard all the excuses under the sun from errant motorists, and reckons the most common is ‘But I’ve only been a minute’.

Les thinks most motorists are lazy and always want to park right outside where they are going, rather than walk a few yards. But he loves cars and will now be able to spend more time in renovating the old MG he has stored at his Kingsteignton home.

‘After pounding an estimated 50,000 miles around the streets I will not miss the job, but I will miss the people I have made a lot of good friends and I shall pop back to see them on occasions

‘But I had better not be booked by the new warden – that would be a story for you wouldn’t it!’