Bernard Umpleby, clergyman

Brought up during the war years on his father’s farm at Menwith Hill near Harrogate, he found that attending Sunday School afforded a welcome break from the chores of rural life, and as a teenager he became a born-again Christian.

After National Service, he formed, with a number of like-minded lads, a group that became known as Darley Men’s Mission Band.

They travelled together around the Nidderdale Methodist circuit, preaching wherever they were invited.

In 1957, he went to Cliff College in Sheffield for evangelism and preaching training, enrolling five years later at Headingley Methodist College.

He went on to serve as a minister at Ebbw Vale, Loftus and Kirby Stephen, and in 1993 he took up the challenge to pastor the Thorpe Edge church in Bradford, a role he maintained until his death.