THE Prime Minister led the tributes last night to the Bishop of Durham, who announced his retirement on Radio 4's Test Match Special.

The Right Reverend Michael Turnbull, 66, revealed his decision during the lunch interval of the Headingley test on Saturday.

Tony Blair said: "He has worked to make the church an active, living, caring organisation and not just a building where people go to worship.

"He will be missed, but we wish him a long and healthy retirement and look forward to seeing him at the county cricket ground many more times in the future."

Bishop Michael succeeded the Right Reverend David Jenkins in 1994 after spending six years as Bishop of Rochester.

He told Christopher Martin Jenkins on Radio 4: "I have long had a mind to do it on Test Match Special."

Earlier, he had told The Northern Echo: "A bishop has to go through quite a lot of protocol when he wants to retire.

"When I informed 10 Downing Street that the announcement would be on Test Match Special, they just said 'Pardon'?"

The announcement also surprised the Reverend Bill Broad, rector of Great Aycliffe, County Durham, who had lunch with the bishop last Monday.

He said: "He certainly didn't talk about retiring, he was still planning ahead."

Soon after Bishop Michael's appointment was announced, a tabloid Sunday newspaper carried a front page story about an incident when he was a young priest in Yorkshire.

"He handled it with such honesty, humility and charm in the right sense that he won most of our hearts," said Mr Broad.

"The way he dealt with that nasty, mucky business was beyond all praise.

"Since then, he has very much pulled the diocese of Durham together, streamlined it and brought a great flair for organisation. If you see him with a problem, he is utterly brilliant."

Bishop Michael, the Church of England's fourth most senior bishop, said North-East people had been "a very easy lot to love".

He has also been a leading campaigner for regional government, and admitted that one of his regrets would be not being in the North-East when a regional assembly was elected "in three or four years time".

Canon Bob Spence, a vicar general in the Roman Catholic diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, said: "I have seen how closely and generously he has identified himself with our region."

The Reverend Graham Carter, chairman of the Darlington Methodist district, said that the bishop's contribution to the religious, political and social life of the region had been immense. He had also been a keen supporter of joint ventures and enabled Anglicans and Methodists to work much more closely together.

Bishop Auckland MP Derek Foster said the bishop deserved particularly praise for "working tirelessly and with great diplomacy to bring about the possibility of regional government".

Durham County Council chairman Charles Magee said: "Bishop Michael brought great warmth, wisdom and dignity to his ministry."

Canon Eric Stephenson, chaplain to the Queen, said: "People have always been able to talk to him and he is genuinely interested in what everyone has to say."

Bishop Michael will move back to the South to be near his three children and seven grandchildren, and also to Normandy, which the family loves. He retires next April 30 - "just in time," he said, "for the new cricket season.