ULVERSTON paid tribute to a gifted poet and a hard-working community figure who was found dead at his home this week, reports Jennie Dennett.

Dickon Abbott is remembered as a charming man who gave his time generously for the good of others.

His wife Hazel and a friend found 42-year-old Mr Abbott's body at the couple's house on Lightburn Road, Ulverston, shortly before 5pm on Monday.

She had returned home after Mr Abbott failed to pick up their eight-year-old daughter Eloise from school.

Furness Coroner's officer Jenny Collins said Mr Abbott was found hanging. Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death and they confirmed that a full inquest would be held at a date to be fixed.

"We have lost a very important man in this community," said Mr Abbott's friend and Ulverston bookshop owner Liz Drew. "So many people will miss him. He stood for so much that Ulverston is - it's creativity, intelligence and generosity. Dickon epitomised what is so good and strong about this town.

"He just exuded niceness and had such charm about him."

Mr Abbott, who hailed from Wiltshire, settled in Cumbria in 1986. The vicar's son and Oxford modern history graduate was immersed in politics and in his time was Windermere Labour Party Secretary, chairman of the High Furness Labour Party and stood as the Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Westmorland and Lonsdale. He had also served on South Lakeland District Council, where councillors paid tribute to him at a meeting on Tuesday. There, they also remembered Coun Bob Bolton, a 50-year-old Ulverston councillor who was suffering from cancer and who died on Sunday.

Coun Bolton and Mr Abbott had worked together transforming Ulverston's Ford Park into a community facility.

By trade, Mr Abbott was a social worker and had worked as part of the Furness and Cartmel Day Service Care Team since 1990.

Cumbria County Council spokesperson Brian Hough said his colleagues would be deeply saddened to hear of his death.

A fundamental part of his life was also his writing. His poetry collection First Flight was published in 2001 and he edited and featured in The Edge, an anthology of new writing from Furness.

He further founded Furness poetry collective Fourth Monday Poets and was an active participant in the local literature scene, organising many of Ulverston's popular Poem and a Pint nights. On top of that he was also a keen amateur actor with the Ulverston Outsiders.

Fellow Fourth Monday poet Neil Curry described his friend as a serious and dedicated poet who understood what he was doing and never let his words "slop about on the page".

"He was very gifted and very talented and I think he would have gone on to write more extremely great things."