ONE of County Durham's best known clergymen has died at the age of 89.

The former vicar of St Giles, in Durham, the Reverend George Casey died peacefully in his sleep last Friday.

Born in Wheatley Hill in 1914, he was the third of four sons to the Reverend Philip Thomas and Fanny Louise Thomas.

He was a chorister and scholar at Durham Cathedral from 1921 and after leaving school studied at St Chad's College where he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a diploma in theology.

He was ordained a deacon in 1937 and a priest in 1938 and served as a curate and a vicar in Benfieldside, Consett, High Spen with Rowlands Gill, Cassop cum Quarrington, St Andrew's, Chilton Moor and St Giles in Durham where he was vicar from 1959 to 1979.

When he retired, he and his wife Mollie went to live in Belmont, where Mollie died in 2000.

The couple had three children, Jennifer, Judith and Richard, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

His funeral will be held at St Giles' Church, on Monday, at 11.15am.