Pioneer who deserves a less than grudging plaque ...

But while the latter (at least in its ruined form) will not be lamented, the town risks a serious omission if nothing is done to commemorate the important chapter in its history represented by Baird Court.

The memoir of his father's stay in Bexhill kindly contributed this week by Malcolm Baird is an important insight into a significant chapter in the town's history.

As he makes clear, the family's stay was not altogether a happy time for by that stage his father was a sick man. Who knows what other key contributions to technical advancement John Logie Baird would have made had he lived longer?

But as this week's testimony makes clear, while all too briefly resident in Bexhill he was still hard at work, commuting to London from the nearby station and working on developments such as the colour television which Malcolm Baird so vividly recalls being demonstrated.

Had John Logie Baird chosen to spend his last days in any other town that community would have feted its adopted son - just as Hastings has rightly done in recognition of the work that Baird did in that town.

When a campaign was started to commemorate the fact that golfing legend Max Faulkner had been born in Bexhill the official reaction was one almost of affront rather than pride.

Eventually, and somewhat grudgingly, a notice was erected at the seafront putting green commemorating Bexhill's famous son.

Such structures are accepted practice almost everywhere. Baird Court had its own acknowledgement of its internationally famous former resident. But it was modest in the extreme and is now gone.

Surely, now is the time for the town to respond to the moment and call for some permanent memorial plaque to be erected which is worthy of the memory of John Logie Baird, whose struggle to develop and perfect something which we all now take for granted is in itself a metaphor for the scant regard Britain accords inventive genius and dogged determination.

Bexhill Town Forum meets on Tuesday. It would be a statesmanlike and gracious gesture if this the "voice" of the people of Bexhill was to make itself heard and initiate a town campaign which, belatedly, accords this great man the local recognition he so richly merits.