A 94-YEAR-old who helped start a farming tradition in a North Yorkshire community, watched with pride as a new farming generation took the helm.

Tommy Atkinson helped to found the Plough Sunday service, heralding the start of the farming year, at Kirkby Malzeard Parish Church, near Ripon, 56 years ago.

Mr Atkinson stopped taking part in the service when he was 92 after attending every annual event.

For the past two years, he has been a member of the congregation watching the tradition continue under the stewardship of a new generation of the local farm workers.

While Mr Atkinson took a back seat at the latest service, it was an occasion which filled him with pride as he saw the plough wheeled down the aisle by a bevy of younger generation of farmers.

Also at the service was churchwarden Mike Atkinson, whose late uncle, Alfie Atkinson, was one of the founders, along with Tommy Atkinson, another uncle. Fellow churchwarden Chris Broadley also has strong links with the service.

A highlight of the service was a performance by the Highside Long Sword Dancers.

The service was conducted by the Dean of Ripon, the Very Reverend John Methuen, who told the congregation they were living in anxious and uncertain times in which people fretted about issues, from the ozone layer to GM crops.

Dean Methuen said people had good reason to be anxious about the rural economy and plight of the farming community.