Memorial service for long-serving Harrogate councillor

A memorial service will be held this week for a long-standing councillor and former Mayor of the Borough of Harrogate.

Jim Clark served for 20 years on North Yorkshire County Council, representing the Harlow Hill division, and was the organisation’s chairman during the covid pandemic.

In this role, at the age of 73, he was among the first to have a covid vaccine in February 2021, wearing a tartan face mask for the occasion.

He was also a Harrogate Borough Council member, representing the Harlow ward for the Conservatives from 1998, and served as its mayor.

Mr Clark took a particular interest in health matters during his time as a councillor, representing North Yorkshire County Council on the West Yorkshire Health Scrutiny Panel.

He called for an enquiry into the Nightingale hospital set up at Harrogate Convention Centre in April 2020, and for staff at Harrogate District Hospital to be allowed to continue to park free in its car park after the initial months of the pandemic.

Professionally, Mr Clark was an accountant, achieving chartered status and being appointed head of entrepreneurial services at Ernst and Young.

He was a keen supporter of the arts, serving as chairman of the Harrogate Theatre board for a decade.

He also took an interest in community organisations, including the Friends of Valley Gardens

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Mr Clark stepped down as a councillor in May 2022 and moved to be closer to family in Scotland, where he died in December.

He left two sons, Andrew and James, a daughter-in-law, Pamela, and three grandsons.

He was posthumously awarded the title of honorary alderman of Harrogate on the abolition of the borough council in March.

A memorial service for Mr Clark will take place at St Wilfrid’s Church on Duchy Road on Friday, August 25 at 2pm, followed by refreshments at the Old Swan Hotel.

The occasion will be a celebration of his life, so his family have requested that attendees do not wear black.

Anyone who would like to attend should contact Andrew Clark on 07710 709172, or by email.

Ripon Cathedral to hold memorial service for famous TV dramatist

A memorial service will be held at Ripon Cathedral at 3pm on Tuesday for playwright and TV dramatist Ian Curteis, whose play about the 1982 Falklands conflict was at the centre of a BBC controversy.

Mr Curteis, who in 2001 married Lady Deirdre Hare, widow of the 7th Baron Grantley of Markenfield Hall, spent the latter years of his life focused on the conservation and restoration of the medieval building, which has been the Grantley family seat since the 13th Century. He died in November.

In 2008, he and Lady Deirdre, who described the moated hall as ‘the loveliest place you’ve never heard of’ won the first annual restoration award sponsored by Sotheby’s and the Historic Houses Association.

Better known to people who followed Mr Curteis’ writing rather than restoration activities, was his work on the BBC blockbuster drama series, The Onedin Line, for which he was commissioned to write a number of episodes.

Photo of Markenfield Hall

Markenfield Hall.

His innovative approach saw him pioneer a new drama-documentary format for his play on the 1956 Suez crisis, broadcast by the BBC in 1979.

Mr Curteis used the same drama-documentary approach for a play about the Falklands War commissioned by the then BBC director-general Alasdair Milne in April 1983 — just a year after the conflict had started.

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However, The Falklands Play, which was for many years at the centre of a controversy involving claims of political bias and attempted censorship, was finally broadcast on BBC Four after a number of re-writes in April 2002.

In a less controversial arena, Mr Curteis wrote an adaptation of JB Priestley’s last novel Lost Empires for ITV and also adapted for broadcast by the BBC The Choir , a novel written by Joanna Trollope.