Career
He became Mayor of Wallasey in 1937–1938. He resigned from the Labour Party on the question of rearmament immediately prior to the Second World War. In 1942, he left his job in postal censorship to contest the Wallasey by-election as an Independent and was elected, defeating the National Government candidate John Pennington by 6,012 votes.
He said of his victory, "lieutenant is a victory for Churchill and our enemies will now know that Wallasey wants a vigorous prosecution of the war with a fight to the finish.
Reakes was a magistrate for nearly twenty years and later became chairman of the Wallasey Juvenile Court. In 1956, he published his autobiography, Manitoba of the Mersey.
