THIS week I attended the funeral of Tony Jacovides, a fellow civil engineer working for Bournemouth council in the sixties.

The post-war years saw momentous changes to the town brought about by engineers such as Tony. He was involved in the design of the coastal intercepting sewer, which was a sewer large enough to walk through and constructed as a tunnel.

It literally intercepted the main sewers, which were discharging sewage into the sea at various points along the coast, and led it back to the Holdenhurst purification works for treatment.

At the piers, large pumping stations were needed to pump the sewage uphill to the intercepting sewer and I recall Tony being involved with their design as well.

It took a number of years and quite a few contracts to complete the work, which had begun with the building of the purification works in the late fifties. None of this is visible to the public and cannot be appreciated, unlike the major roads and bridges that were built in the seventies.

I was fortunate to be responsible for major coastal works, including the reconstruction of the East Overcliff Drive combined with cliff stabilisation and afterwards the sea walls at Southbourne beach.

Tony subsequently went to work for Wessex Water, which took over the drainage function from local councils in the 1970s.

The team of drainage engineers remained in the Town Hall till the early ’90s and their work ensured that flooding from surface water in the town is a rare occurrence.

So next time you have a bath, go for a swim or experience heavy rainfall, please think of all the invisible work that has been done to make this town a good place to live in.

TERRY LEONARD, Lowther Road, Bournemouth