A POPULAR showman and Second World War veteran was remembered and paid tribute to at a service of thanksgiving yesterday.

Hundreds of family and friends gathered for the funeral of 95-year-old Stanley Crow, from Northallerton, in North Yorkshire, who died earlier this month.

Mr Crow was a flamboyant fixture at the town’s annual May Fair, as well as at countless other similar events around the region and further afield.

A former president of the Showmen’s Guild, he died on September 10, following a fall.

His funeral, at All Saints’ Church, in Northallerton, was a celebration of his life.

Among those at the service were representatives from the guild and the Royal British Legion.

Mr Crow’s lily-topped coffin was accompanied into church by upbeat music – the march Blaze Away, often played at fairs and widely known in North-East folklore as the Black Pudding Song.

Canon Bill Hall, the guild’s chaplain, paid tribute to Mr Crow.

He said: “Stanley was a wonderfully friendly man.

“A conversation with him was a tactile experience.

“He would grab you by the arm as he told you a joke, a story or shared his views on life.”

Mr Crow, one of five siblings, was a member of the Royal Army Service Corps and spent some time as a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany.

Canon Hall said Mr Crow would often tell the story of how he made his escape from captivity .

Mr Crow travelled widely and married his wife, Alice, in 1971. She died in 2006.

Canon Hall told how Mr and Mrs Crow once travelled to New York on the QEII, experiencing 60ft seas in the mid-Atlantic.

“He absolutely swore that the film Jaws was being shown on board the ship at the time,” said Canon Hall.

At the end of the 25-minute service, Mr Crow’s coffin was carried away for burial, to the strains of Unforgettable, by Nat King Cole.

Afterwards, Mr Crow’s family and friends shared their memories of him at one of his favourite hostelries – Northallerton’s Golden Lion hotel.

■ The Northern Echo attended yesterday’s service with the permission of Mr Crow’s family.