I RECEIVED a letter from the council the other day and, for once, it was not demanding money with menaces. It was, however, asking for a pound or two of flesh from me when the time comes when I no longer need it.

The letter came from an old friend, Coun Peter Walbank, Chairman of Craven District Council. It wasn't demanding the rates (or council tax as they are now known) but urging my wife and I to sign onto the NHS Organ Donor Register so that, should anything happen to us, our body parts might be used to save other lives.

Thousands of people die in Britain every year who could be saved by routine organ transplants. It is not the fault of the NHS but simply down to the fact that there aren't enough organs to go around - too few people sign on the register.

So Peter, long time supporter of good causes, decided to use the opportunity of a letter to all residents bringing the electoral register up to date to include his own personal appeal. It was also an opportunity for me to break a golden rule.

So far, this column has never focused on a local councillor, however worthy. They get enough space in the paper as it is and know how to speak up for themselves. However, Peter Walbank is the least political politician I have ever met and, what's more, a man who makes you laugh although he himself has had a long life in which there were many disappointments.

"I would prefer it if there were no politics in local government at all," he says wistfully, pulling on his well-worn pipe. "Trouble is, you have to have a group to push through certain measures and a political group seems to be the only answer. Without it, nothing would ever get done."

So Peter is a Conservative but just about as liberal as they come. Some of his best friends are old-fashioned left wing Labour. But enough of that: this is about the man, not about politics.

Peter, now 72, is one of thousands of Yorkshire folk who spent most of their adult lives watching the decline, and eventual collapse, of one of this county's once great industries: textiles.

His Bradford family had been textile manufacturers for generations but, even back in the late 1940s when Peter first went into the industry, things were beginning to go sour. He trained as an industrial designer, once worked at the famous Lister's Mill in Bradford, and eventually set up his own textile design company. At its peak, it employed 40 people.

"But the accountants had moved into the business," he says softly but with obvious pain. "They said they didn't need designers any more - they would just go on churning out the old stuff and save the development costs.

"This was the time when foreign imports were beginning to flood the country: you could buy a foreign-made dress for less than the cost of buying the English material to make it yourself. Design was the key - and it was thrown away."

With his staff down to 10, and mills which had been his customers closing at the rate of one a day, he eventually had to close down. He sold the brand new looms on which he had made up his new designs for a few pounds.

"They went to some gypsies and I watched them smash them up with sledgehammers for scrap," he says now, his voice barely audible. "It was the worst day of my life."

Still in love with textiles, he set up a small chain of retail haberdashery shops. At one stage, there were four of them, the most famous being on the square at Grassington where he achieved the arcane distinction of selling more knicker elastic than any other shop in the North of England. But once again, social trends were agin him.

"They stopped teaching sewing in schools years ago," he recalls. "Young women have enough ready cash to buy ready-made clothes. Some of them have never used a needle to sew on a button. And you have to sell a lot of reels of cotton to keep a shop in business."

The shops closed one by one until Grassington was the only survivor. The lease on that ran out last October and Peter decided it was time to call it a day. He and the staff had a farewell party in the Black Bull where they swapped presents, cuddles - and a few tears.

A sad story, you might think. A story that might well have broken a lesser man. But this is no melodrama. The wonderful thing about Peter Walbank is that he is also one of the most cheerful people I have ever met.

One of the reasons is that he discovered the Yorkshire Dales as a young man. He bought a wooden hut at Hebden 50 years ago, where he cooked on a coke stove and bought duck eggs from the local farmer. He has lived in Grassington and been an integral part of that community for years - he was one of the founders of the famous Dickensian Christmas Festival.

And then he has his narrow boat on the canal in Skipton, where he stays overnight after attending one of his many council meetings. From time to time, he sets off to explore the canals of Northern England accompanied by some of his huge circle of friends.

"I remember when the canal in Skipton was nothing more than an open sewer," he smiles. "Now, with the Millennium Walk and some of the first-class canal side developments, it has become the heart of a beautiful and prosperous town.

"We have problems, of course, like difficulties with parking. But all in all, both Skipton and Grassington have improved immeasurably in recent years to become wonderful places in which to live. If I've done my little bit to help that along, I shall consider I have had a very fulfilling and satisfactory life."

As I said, nice man, Peter Walbank, politician with a very small p.