Obituaries

MERCY Rimell, who has died just days after her 98th birthday, was widely regarded as the matriarch of National Hunt racing.

Trevor Larsen, who has died at 76, was a former Lord Mayor of Hull credited with laying some of the foundation work for its year as the UK’s City of Culture.

Jan Holdstock, who has died in Leeds at 76, was a musician, a gifted lyricist and a noted composer of music for young people.

Helen Cadbury, who has died at 52, was a teacher, poet and dramatist who found her calling as the author of the Sean Denton series of crime novels.

George Carrigill, who has died at 84, had been Britain’s youngest bookmaker, and lived long enough to be its oldest.

Helen Blamires Sugden, who has died at 98, was a wartime ambulance driver who became a tireless charity worker as well as a councillor in the West Yorkshire district of Kirklees.

A CHILDREN’S story about a bear with a battered suitcase and a penchant for marmalade sandwiches had in 1958 been no-one’s idea of a best-seller. But with the death yesterday at 91 of Michael Bond, they closed the book on one of publishing’s greatest franchises.

His Honour John David Walker was well known in Hull as a barrister of many years standing, who became a circuit judge on the north-eastern circuit.

Countess Mountbatten of Burma, godmother to the Prince of Wales, had played an extremely important part in his young life, Prince Charles acknowledged.

Colin Iveson, who has died at 64, turned down a job in London to remain in the Yorkshire Dales, and spent most of his 43 years in local government in the delightful surroundings of Craven.

YOU couldn’t have missed Bill Harber if you drove through Barnsley in the days before it was bypassed by the M1.

John Finnegan, who has died at 71, was not only president of Harrogate rugby union club but also a long-serving player, known to generations of junior coaches as ‘Finners’.

The journalist and author Derek Hodgson, who has died at 87, literally wrote the book on cricket in Yorkshire.

IT IS hard to imagine Hull FC ever again enjoying times as golden as those savoured under Arthur Bunting, their legendary coach, who has died at 80.

Harry Green, who has died at 90, enjoyed a remarkable career in which he literally helped put Africa on the map.

The poet and novelist Helen Dunmore, who has died at 64, having recently made public her cancer diagnosis, was an Orange prize winning author of 12 novels and 10 poetry collections.

THERE NEVER was a more convincing Yorkshireman on screen, either in face or voice, but the actor who created two indelible regional characters was actually from no further north than the upper reaches of the Thames.

EVEN THOUGH Peter Sallis hailed from Twickenham, he will always be synonymous with TV’s Last of the Summer Wine, Britain’s longest-running TV comedy series, which was filmed in Holmfirth and became a national institution.