Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Eventful life of wildlife champion
Ken West, who has died aged 82, was a major figure in wildlife conservation in Kent and a magistrate on the east Kent bench for 20 years.
He lived an extraordinarily varied life which saw him serve in the Navy and colonial police in Africa before setting up his own business in the UK and committing himself to animal ecology.
Born in Barnehurst, on the Kent-london border, in 1934, Mr West left school at 15 and worked first as a hand on a Devon farm.
He was registered for National Service and enlisted in the Royal Marines, serving in Egypt, Malta, Cyprus, Libya and Greece in 45 Commando.
His next move was into insurance, but he failed to settle and instead applied to join the colonial police.
His first posting was to Lusaka in what was then Northern Rhodesia, where he studied for his police exams before later being posted to Luanshya in the Copperbelt province.
He would go on to become the public prosecutor for the area.
This was a busy time for authorities who were battling the independence movement.
After a three-year posting, he returned to the UK. On the journey he met his wife-to-be, Jean Mckenzie. They married at Ixopo in South Africa in December of 1962 and would have three children – Lindsay, Richard and Alastair.
Mr West continued to live and work in Northern Rhodesia. As it headed towards eventual independence as Zambia in 1964, he established a security company to deal with a break down in law and order.
He ended 17 years of working in Africa by moving back to the UK in the early 70s and working for Securicor. In 1985 he created a firm called Citidata Storage, which collected and stored back-up computer tapes. It was a success and was sold it in 1992.
Mr West retired the following year and entered the magistracy in east Kent. He was a magistrate for 20 years, including seven years on the Lord Chancellor’s committee for the selection of magistrates.
He earned a reputation for fairness and adopted an approach of trying to understand the minds of defendants.
Mr West lived for 40 years of his life in Stalisfield near Faversham with a couple of years in Whitstable in between.
In retirement he devoted himself to animal projects. He formed the Kent Mammal Group in 1997 and in 2000 took over the wildlife park at Herne Common, which he would convert into Wildwood. It became a specialist in British animals and their ecology.
He was also a trustee of the Kent Wildlife Trust and chairman of its conservation committee.
Mr West’s funeral takes place in Stalisfield on Sunday. Any donations can be made to the Wildwood Trust. For more information, his daughter Lindsay can be emailed on l.j.west@icloud.com