A long-serving councillor has thanked strangers who came to his aid when he suffered a stroke while out shopping and the health team helping him get back on his feet.

Cllr Tom Mason, 80, was at the Pentagon Centre in Chatham by himself when he began to feel ill.

“I felt numb in my head, very disorientated and wasn’t able to speak,” Cllr Mason explained.

Staff from the T-Mobile shop and the centre’s security team called an ambulance.

After being assessed on the stroke unit at Medway Hospital, Cllr Mason began to get his voice back and was kept in overnight, cared for by the Medway Community Healthcare (MCH) stroke team.

It was then that he suffered another stroke.

Cllr Mason said: “I had an operation to remove a blockage from a gland on the side of my neck which had caused the strokes and I returned home the next day.”

The team continued to visit him at his home in Wainscott to give physiotherapy and speech and language therapy sessions, which has helped him improve on the weakness on his right-hand side and his speech is now back.

He said: “I have weakness down my right-hand side that is improving all the time with physiotherapy and my speech is back.

“The staff at Medway Hospital were excellent and this continues with care from the stroke team who now visit me at home.

"Also, the ambulance staff and people at the Pentagon Centre were very good. I would like to thank them all.”

Cllr Mason, 80, who has been a councillor for more than 45 years, added: “I have always been active and healthy so it was a shock but I am positive; always be positive I say.”