Percy Prowse’s near-death sepsis account brings emotion to handover

The near-death experience from sepsis of a former Exeter mayor brought emotion and humility to the occasion at which he handed over the ceremonial chains to mark the end of his county council chairmanship.

Cllr Percy Prowse (Conservative, Duryard & Pennsylvania), who stepped down this week as chair of Devon County Council, recalled visiting a walk-in health centre after feeling unwell, from where a doctor sent him straight to the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital (RD&E) for emergency surgery.
“My doctor asked me if I knew how ill I looked, and he took a picture of me and showed me,” he said.
“Before that, he took out some antibiotics and, I’ll never forget, he told me ‘you’re not able to have those as they take three days to work and you’d be dead’.
“He told me I needed to go straight to the RD&E, to which I said that I didn’t want an ambulance but that my son would take me; and then during the afternoon, the surgeon came to see me to say he’d be operating at midnight to save my life.”
Cllr Prowse thanked the NHS for their work, and, visibly emotional with his wife behind him, he praised the hospital for its care of his daughter, who he told the meeting had suffered from cancer during his term, but whose treatment “had been the absolute best and it has worked”.
He has made a donation to the lord mayor of Exeter’s charity, Force Cancer Charity, whose services his daughter used.
With characteristic good humour, Mr Prowse regaled the chamber with stories of his driver pulling into a farm to grab a bargain of a dozen eggs for £2.50, and how he once had to catch a bus in his ceremonial chains because the train he was on had failed to stop at Marsh Barton where he had left his bike.
He reiterated how his focus had been the young people of Devon, and told the councillors how he had secured Exeter Chiefs’ tickets for a teenage carer.
“I met Tony Rowe, the chief executive of the club, at the Devon County Show recently and he said ‘if between us we can make the life of one child nice for one day, I’m in for it’.
“But then I asked the council how many registered carers we have, and it’s a staggering 2,392.”
Cllr Prowse said after 32 years in the police force before retiring in 2002, he thought he’d finished public service, but he ran for a county council seat in 2009 and was elected.
“And here I am, in 2024, and I’ve just completed my year as chairman,” he said.
“It’s been an honour and I thank you all for trusting me with the role.
“I’ve definitely found out how big the county is, having been to all four corners.”
He thanked his vice chair Councillor Colin Slade (Conservative, Tiverton East), whom he said had stepped in for him when he was out of action in hospital.
Cllr Slade said being a vice chair “one knows you’ll be playing second fiddle to the lead violin” but he was “happy to do that and I thank Percy for the confidence to stand in for him”.
“He was ill and I had to step up to the plate to fill in, and I look back with pride over the things we have done.”
Cllr Prowse passed responsibility for chairing the council to Cllr John Hart (Conservative, Wembury and Bickleigh), who this month stood down as council leader after 15 years.
Cllr Hart was nominated for the position by Cllr Christine Channon (Conservative, Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton Coastal), who said she couldn’t think of a better person for the job, given his devoted work over a “colossal number of hours” for the authority over so many years.
Cllr Slade also passed his responsibilities to Cllr Pru Maskell (Conservative, Braunton Rural), a former staff nurse at North Devon District Hospital and mother of four.
Cllr Maskell said her focus for the year would be on accessibility and disability.
“As a deaf person, the pandemic really brought home to me how difficult life could be with face masks and social distancing,” she said.
“My mother-in-law spent the last four months of her life in a wheelchair, and it really opened my eyes to the everyday obstacles which disabled people face.”
The council chairperson fills a ceremonial role for a year, representing the local authority at civic events.