LORD Tiverton, eccentric millionaire and Official Monster Raving Loony Party devotee, died earlier this month, shortly after his good friend and mentor Screaming Lord Sutch.

Loony Lord Tiverton, as he referred to himself, was one of the most colourful characters in Sussex and his home town was determined to give him a send-off to match. John Bedford reports.

HUNDREDS of people lined the streets to say goodbye to a local hero in the only way he would have wanted - in a blaze of colour and a fanfare of music.

Lord Tiverton's flamboyant life ended earlier this month at the age of 72, following a number of health problems.

Yesterday his final wish, that his funeral be a celebration rather than an occasion for sorrow, was followed to the letter by his friends and relatives in Hastings.

The short route from Tivers's home above a shop in the historic Old Town of Hastings to the nearby St Clement's Church was packed with those eager to pay their last respects. A jazz band led the hearse, followed by a lively procession of mourners including members of the Monster Raving Loony Party of which Tivers was appointed chairman shortly before his death. Sadly he never heard the good

news.

Party leader Howling Laud Alan Hope was among those dressed in pink wigs, top hats and psychedelic suits.

He said: "This is a very sad day. It's been a hard year for us after the death of Screaming Lord Sutch and now to lose our new chairman is a terrible shame.

"I was trying to phone him on the day he died to tell him he had been voted in as party chairman

but I never got the chance to. I think he would have liked the title though.

The carnival-like procession wound its way to the church for a service led by Rev Iain Morrison.

The imposing place of worship was filled with a congregation which had been banned from wearing black, among them town mayor Godfrey Daniel, fellow councillors and friends from across the country, including "Madam Cyn", Cynthia Payne.

Outrageous

The hymn Morning Has Broken opened the proceedings and was followed by readings from Tivers's three young grandchildren Charlotte, Polyanna and Bianca Howell. They were accompanied by their father Barry, Tivers's only son.

Friends recalled how Derek Howell, later to buy the title Lord Tiverton after making his fortune from a chain of health food shops, kept the town smiling with his outrageous pink wardrobe of clothes and banana-coloured Rolls- Royce.

Friend Peter Dunn said: "Tivers lived in a flat above a shop in the town with a swimming pool on the first floor. He could have lived in a mansion but he

lived there because he liked people and he

liked being part of a family.

"He was a bright flash of colour who will always be part of Hastings Old Town. Goodbye Tivers, we'll miss you."

Following the service the coffin, adorned with white lilies, was carried from the church to a private cremation.

The bizarre entourage of mourners then congregated at Hastings angling club for a wake that was anything but morose.

Fellow Loony Baron Von Thundercrap, from Haywards Heath, said: "Tivers was the last of the real gentlemen. I remember he even loaned me his Rolls-Royce for my wedding.

Illness

"He will be sorely missed. We will never see his like again."

Lord Tiverton, who died at the Conquest Hospital, Hastings,

had fought a mystery illness for more than six months.

He had lived only

a few doors from Lord Sutch's former home

in the Old Town and

the pair had been close friends for many years.

Once they walked backwards together for hundreds of miles before visiting the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson's home on the Scilly Isles to criticise his Union Jack doormat.

Lord Tiverton, who opened his first shop in Devonshire Road, Bexhill, in 1976, made

£3 million from the

sale of his health food chain Nature's Way in 1986.

Since then he

had dedicated him-

self to living the loony lifestyle.

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