It is 1986 and a spectre (no, not me) is haunting Europe. Or more accurately, an inconvenient weather system. 

Why the fuss? Well, said meteorological processes were nudging westwards the airborne contents of a rather unfortunate accident emanating from a nuclear powerplant near the city of Pripyat. 

Thereafter, the name Chernobyl would become shorthand for anything which combines explosiveness with a dangerous fallout. 

Coincidentally, I was ruminating on the disaster when Father Derek skipped his way into the vestry rather like those Welsh lambs that needed back then to be slaughtered because of their ingestion of radioactive isotopes. 

"He's back! He's really back this time!" he gleefully clapped his hands together in little movements like an old-fashioned wind-up doll. 

It turns out that the 'he' in question is Brian Riley, which is rather how the sobriquet Chernobyl has come to attach itself to this goodly resident of Pinewood. 

Father Derek caught Chernobyl Riley's intervention at a recent Babergh ding-dong, sorry full council meeting, when he joined in with Queenie Dawson's questioning of Generalissimo Ward's relationship with truthfulness regarding the Corks Lane redevelopment project. 

Brian 'Chernobyl' Riley

Of course, Chernobyl Riley has close associations with Hadleigh and, indeed, quite a few other places around the globe. 

He was a Babergh councillor and then successfully won the County Council seat after the retirement of Footsie Grutchfield's pa. 

Chernobyl has a bit of a reputation for rubbing people up the wrong way, especially those in his own Conservative group. I understand that a previous Tory leader on being informed that he had been attending anger management courses, allegedly quipped that he "should ask for his money back." 

He became well-known for his over-use of certain stock putdowns of opponents, including the one frequently misattributed to either Abraham Lincoln or Mark Twain: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt." Mildly amusing at first hearing. Less so, by the seventy-third.  

But I can see why our priestly scribbler is so pleased with Chernobyl's return. He gives exceedingly good copy. 

The vertiginous summit of his political career was reached when he migrated to North Carolina to offer his services to Hilary Clinton's 2016 efforts to win the state. Needless to say, The Donald won it by a comfortable margin. 

But that electoral kerfuffle was as nothing compared with the meltdown going on back in Blighty. You see, Chernobyl thought it perfectly acceptable to carry on representing Hadders and billing council taxpayers for the privilege of him jetting in to attend the minimal number of meetings required to avoid being disqualified. 

Then, he was booted out of the Conservative group, only to return from Uncle Sam-land where, various barb-wired letters to local newspapers aside, he has kept the radioactive stuff to a minimum. 

But his most recent intervention has pundits (Father Derek to you and me) thinking that he might be gearing up to fight the Pinewood seat at next year's Babergh elections. 

To cope with the expected deluge of quotable quotes (his own or purloined from other people) and antics, Father Derek is having to recruit a choir's-worth of journalists. 

The trouble I have with Chernobyl, rather as with Queenie Dawson and Toad Barrett, her current group leader (boy, does she get through 'em!) is that for all their epistle-producing, motion-writing and political manoeuvring, I struggle to associate them with anything that will endure beyond their time in office. 

Compare that with the late Edwin Panks. I thought of him a while back after I'd heard that his widow, Dorothy, had recently passed over. I knew her a little from her bridge-playing and karate-training days (I made one of those two up) and rather admired the family. 

Although a local council employee rather than, to quote Robin Day, 'a here today, gone tomorrow politician', Edwin Panks' quiet legacy is still being enjoyed by thousands of town residents, some forty years after his own ascent into Glory. 

It was thanks to him that the river walk from Toppesfield Bridge to the aforementioned Corks Lane exists, as his patient negotiations with myriad landowners bore fruit. 

It was thanks to him that the Hadleigh Industrial Estate was approved and built and so providing jobs for local workers and others. 

It was thanks to him that so many historic buildings in the town were not demolished and were instead preserved to be enjoyed by owners, the general populace and visitors alike. 

We do need more Edwin Pankses. 

As for the others in this column? Well to quote Abraham Twain, or was it Mark Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt"? 

*Add your column, readers letter, newsletter, article or pictures by using the black Nub It button on the home news page