PHIL Carey, who died on July 15 aged 92, was awarded the MBE after a lifetime’s work for good causes.

Phil, a D-Day veteran, was a Salvationist, a Rotarian, and a former councillor.

Born in London, he came to Bournemouth as an RAF conscript in 1941, staying at a guest house in Boscombe.

His boots can be seen in the Leslie Howard film The First of the Few, in which he helped push a Spitfire out of its hangar.

He was stationed at Hurn Airport in the run-up to D-Day before embarking from Gosport for Utah beach, where he helped establish landing strips.

His war ended at Lubeck, close to the Russian border, and he never forgot the harrowing experience of visiting Belsen concentration camp shortly after it was liberated.

After the war, Phil followed his parents into the fruit and veg trade. Hired by Anthony Jackson’s Food Fair, he was the first person in supermarkets to buy direct from the growers, so the stores no longer had to wait until nearly midday to stock fresh produce.

Phil moved to Bournemouth in 1976 and began a long association with the Boscombe, Poole and Winton corps of the Salvation Army. He had been an office boy at the SA’s international headquarters in London in 1936.

He became a Conservative county councillor in 1989 and represented Boscombe West on Bournemouth Borough Council until 2003.

However in 2002, he parted company with Bournemouth council’s Conservative group after being disciplined for voting to save the Winter Gardens.

A school and hospital governor, and trustee of the domestic violence charity the Butterfly Foundation, Phil remained active in his community until the end of his life. He was elected a governor of Dorset HealthCare NHS Trust at the age of 91.

For 17 years, he organised the Daily Echo Toy Appeal, which sent gifts to underprivileged children and to women fleeing domestic violence.

Last year, he was presented by the Queen with the MBE for services to charity. He said afterwards: “When I told her my age, she said to me: ‘You’re doing very well.’”

Phil, who lived in Southbourne in recent years, was married for 61 years to Olive, who died in 2002.

He was a devoted father, grandfather and great-grandfather, and saw several of his family follow him into the church or the Salvation Army.