Jan Goffey- A fiery character with community at heart
Jan might say that in her 70th year she doesn’t have the energy she used to have but Okehampton’s mayor most definitely still has the passion and commitment of a person half her age. This former teacher is putting in a good 37 hours a week on behalf of the community she loves and I get the feeling she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Originally from Liverpool, Jan arrived in Okehampton more than 30 years ago with her husband and three children. She taught in the town’s primary school and many of the village schools in the area until she retired. Jan gets great delight from seeing former pupils greet her from behind pushchairs. ‘I can remember a time when you stood in Fore Street and you knew virtually everyone that came up to you. It’s very different now,’ she said. ‘The town boundary is only half a mile each way from the crossroads, which is why the population doesn’t appear to change. It’s only about 7,000, but all the development is in the hamlets. Within a 15-mile radius, not including Tavistock, we have a population of around 30,000, which is a factor that has enabled us to get the railway trial between here and Exeter.’
The railway, the traffic chaos which can bring Okehampton to a halt on a regular basis and the impending changes at the town’s hospital are all issues very close to Jan’s heart and ones in which she has been heavily involved since she became a councillor seven years ago.
‘People have been asking me for the last 30 years to stand for the town council and I always said no, but I got inveigled into it - I never for one moment thought I would end up being mayor though!’ says Jan. ’People think you can wave a magic wand if you’re mayor but really we are just a glorified parish council. You can bang so many heads together but at the end of the day we don’t have any true power.’
On the subject of Okehampton’s roads, Jan explains she actually feels sorry for Devon County Council and believes they are ‘between a rock and a hard place’ when it comes to funding improvements. However, there’s no sympathy when it comes to the subject of bed closures at Okehampton Hospital. ‘I care deeply and passionately about the NHS,’ she said. ‘I think the charter says it’s for the people and free at the point of service and what they are trying to do is push us into the American system by the back door - chip, chip, chip - until there’s nothing left. In the US, unless you are employed by a major employer you can’t afford the insurance costs and that’s what we are heading for here, unless the entire country says enough is enough.’
When not fighting the town’s corner when it comes to health services, Jan’s favourite part of her mayoral duties is being able to meet and support the many community organisations that flourish in the Okehampton area, particularly those involved with young people.
A family woman, Jan’s three grown up children were all educated in Okehampton. She now has four granddaughters, two in Seattle, America and two in London. She was widowed for 30 years but is now happily settled with partner Lyn. In what little spare time they have, they grow vegetables at their Fatherford allotment, which she said was a great way to chill out and whenever she gets a couple of consecutive days off, she and Lyn like to take off for short breaks. She said she was very fortunate Lyn understood she was a self-confessed workaholic and she very much appreciated coming home of an evening and being able to ‘offload’.
‘I couldn’t do this job without him,’ she said.
Jane Honey