A South Norfolk councillor has been presented with a personal letter from the prime minister in celebration of 50 years of service.

Christopher Kemp became a councillor for South Norfolk in 2003 and was first elected in 1968 as a member of Havering London Borough Council and served there until 1994.

Mr Kemp said: 'I have been interested in politics for as long as I can remember. I recall following the results of the 1955 General Election on a wall-chart in my bedroom when I was 12.

'My university studies and more than 50 years practical experience has deepened and refined that interest.'

Richard Bacon, MP for South Norfolk, said: 'Christopher has shown passion, integrity, justice, compassion, determination and persistence throughout his 50 years of public service.'

Mr Kemp was born in 1943 in Plaistow, East London and went to London School of Economics where he qualified as a solicitor, spending the next thirty years in legal practice.