MORE than 300 friends and relatives have honoured the memory of a courageous coach driver who has died 37 years after his bus was blown up by the IRA, killing 12 people.

Mourners packed St Akelda’s Church, in Middleham, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire, to pay their respects to Roland Handley, who died of pneumonia hours after being taken to the Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, for treatment.

Mr Handley, 76, and his wife of 53 years, Sheila, ran R Handley Travel from their home in the horseracing town. He had been taking soldiers from Manchester to Catterick Garrison in February 1974 when a 50lb bomb exploded in the vehicle’s boot.

Mrs Handley said her husband, who was an apprentice mechanical engineer at Sherwoods, in Darlington, before serving with the RAF in the Fifties, had heard a huge bang as he drove on the M62 and initially thought he had run off the road and hit a wall.

Police later described Mr Handley, who was thrown from his seat and had shards of the shattered windscreen in his face after the blast, as a hero for bringing the coach to a stop with no further casualties.

Mrs Handley said: “Before the bomb went off, a family had come up to him and asked to get on even though the coach was full.

He found two places for the parents on the back seat and their children sat on their laps.

“After the explosion, the first body Roland found was one of those children, whose body was unblemished by the blast. It was terribly distressing.”

Mr Handley got into a coach the next day and drove another coach on the same route the following weekend, taking soldiers for their weekend leave.

Mrs Handley said her husband never held a grudge towards the perpetrators and had holidayed in Northern Ireland. He also remained philosophical after Judith Ward had her conviction over the bombing quashed in 1992, after serving 18 years in jail.

In later life, the couple ran coaching holidays, which were popular with customers from Darlington to Harrogate, and Mr Handley enjoyed shooting and morning walks by the River Ure with his springer spaniel, Taff.

He also leaves his three children, Sharon, Steven and Darren, six grandchildren and one greatgrandchild.