A DELEGATION from Durham University will attend the funeral in Switzerland today of its Chancellor Sir Peter Ustinov.

A service will be held in St Pierre's Cathedral, Geneva, and will be followed by a private burial in the nearby village where he lived.

The actor, director, raconteur and wit died last weekend, aged 82. He had been Chancellor of the university since 1992.

Pro vice-chancellor, Professor John Anstee and his wife, Angela, and the university's head of public relations, Keith Seacroft, will fly out for the service.

They will be joined by third year law student Tejen Barbezat, vice-president of the university's international student association, who lives near Geneva.

The university's vice-chancellor, Sir Kenneth Calman, is unable to attend as he is on a business trip to Japan.

Mr Seacroft, who arranged Sir Peter's visits to the university, said: "We have arranged for a floral tribute, which was the family's request, to be delivered to the cathedral.

"It will have the message 'for Mr Chancellor, from the students, staff and graduates of the University of Durham'."

Mr Seacroft added: "There will be a celebration of Sir Peter's life and work in Durham some time later and I believe there may be a memorial to him in London."

The process to find a successor to Sir Peter, the university's tenth chancellor, could take about a year.

He was appointed about a year after the death of his predecessor, Dame Margot Fonteyn.

Consideration of candidates goes through a series of university committees and governing bodies.