Thank you and good night, Harry
The famous and the ordinary folk of Yorkshire turn out at York Minster to honour Harry Gration
In the end, there could have been no other setting for the funeral of the man they called Mr Yorkshire.
The sun beamed down on York Minster as the region marked Yorkshire Day on Monday – and the friends and family of former Look North presenter Harry Gration, who died suddenly in June aged 71, came to say their final goodbyes.
In a two-hour service, the congregation heard from his wife Helen how Mr Gration was shared by his family with the region every evening as they sat to watch Look North, but to them he was “simply a husband, dad and daddy – and we loved him totally.”
The guest list for the service almost read as a who’s who of the county. Cricketing legends Dickie Bird and Sir Geoffrey Boycott were there, as was Leeds United’s Eddie Gray.
From the world of politics,
Kim Leadbeater, the MP for Batley and Spen, paid a moving tribute to how Mr Gration had supported her family in the wake of her sister Jo Cox’s murder. The Queen’s representative in North Yorkshire, Lord Lieutenant Jo Ropner, read a psalm.
Former Archbishop of York Lord John Sentamu came out of retirement to deliver the sermon in memory of his “dear friend and fellow traveller”.
He said just weeks ago the pair of them were planning a pilgrimage together to Israel, adding that Mr Gration’s faith had “exploded” in his later life
Former BBC presenter Simon McCoy read a poem by Amanda Gorman.
And, of course, Mr Gration’s Look North “family” including Amy Garcia, Keeley Donovan, who delivered a joint eulogy, and Paul Hudson, as well as former presenter Christa Ackroyd, joined to say goodbye to their “professional and humble” colleague.
But it was a service for the people of Yorkshire to say their goodbyes to Mr Gration. Among those in the congregation were a couple who served him regularly in his local supermarket.
Leading the service, the Rev Canon Richard Carew, the priest at Mr Gration’s parish church in Dringhouses, York, told how the service had been designed to reflect both the private and the public Harry.
And that was evident in the tribute of two of his six children, twins Harvey and Harrison. Just minutes after following their father’s coffin through the Great West Door into the Minster, Harrison sang Aaron Copland’s At The River before both men delivered a eulogy.
They told how on family holidays, whether they were at “the quietest island in the Florida Keys, or the northernmost hill in Scotland, there was always a couple from Barnsley or Whitby who approached him like they’d known him their whole life”.
And both spoke of the joy of the birth of their younger brother Hamilton to Mr and Mrs Gration three years ago.
As the service concluded, the Great West Door opened for Mr Gration’s coffin to be borne on to its final journey and applause from hundreds of members of the public congregated outside the Minster.
Perhaps the most fitting last words were those given by Amy Garcia at the end of her eulogy.
“From all of us, Harry, thank you – and good night.”