LIFELONG Methodist Arthur White has achieved a remarkable milestone - by clocking up 75 years as a local preacher.

Mr White, of Colburn, who celebrates his 98th birthday on Saturday, became a fully accredited local preacher in 1927 and still attends church weekly.

He received a letter of congratulation from the Rev Peter Barber, connexional local preachers' secretary, from the Church's headquarters in London.

"They couldn't give me a certificate because they only have them up to 70 years," said Mr White, who preached regularly on the Swaledale circuit until ten years ago.

He still worships at Colburn Methodist Church, just round the corner from his home at the Oak Tree Court sheltered housing complex, and prays with the preacher before each service.

Born at Old Colburn in 1904, Mr White was 22 when he wrote and preached his first sermon at Tunstall chapel. He still recalls the text from John's Gospel: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

He then spent three months 'on note' and a year 'on trial' before being accredited by the Methodist Church.

"I preached all round the circuit and went up to Reeth a few times to help them out," he said.

He married and the couple had one child, Ron, who died of an illness brought on by wet sleeping conditions endured while on active RAF service during the war.

Mr White also went into the RAF, and was posted to Orkney to work on the barrage balloons which kept enemy aircraft high and an easier target. He also spent part of the war at Skipton and near Salisbury, in Wiltshire, as a motor engineer.

He returned home after the war and preached around the circuit regularly until 1992, when he delivered his last sermon at Richmond Methodist Church, though he is still licensed to preach.

"I was in my late eighties by then and I thought it was time to hand over to someone else," he said.

The Bible reading and interpretation needed to compile sermons regularly helped him develop his faith and confidence in his religion, he said.

"A lot of people have heard there might be a future life, but they wonder if it is really correct and if there is anything to support it. Once you really get down to it, you find a deep level of consciousness and faith and there is no going back."

He likens his unswerving faith in God to the certain knowledge that the seasons will turn and the sun will rise and set.

"The New Testament spells out exactly what the world wants and needs - co-operation by working together to live in a way which is friendly."