A MAYOR has pledged to try to reunite a city's official Remembrance Day gathering amid growing public unease over two rival ceremonies which have split a city.

A leading Royal British Legion member has also asked the local branch to reconsider its breakaway and return to the traditional service in Ripon Cathedral instead of holding its own act of remembrance at the war memorial in Spa Gardens, Ripon, North Yorkshire.

For the second successive year, the main civic service continued an 80-year tradition by being held in Ripon Cathedral - but half-a-mile away the Royal British Legion stood in silence at the war memorial - followed by separate march pasts in opposite directions.

The Mayor of Ripon, Councillor David Harrison, aims to speak to everyone involved to secure a single service to suit all parties.

And Andrew Cowie, vice-chairman of North Yorkshire's Royal British Legion, who attended the cathedral service, said: "I would ask the local legion branch to come back to the cathedral service.

"I feel very strongly that this should not have been splintered."

The chairman of the local branch, Maurice Rudd, said they hoped talks would mean both events could get together again.

Mr Rudd said about 300 had attended the war memorial and by being there at 11am they were "doing the same as the rest of the country".

Mr Rudd said: "Apart from that, our members are getting older and older. It is a lot easier for them to stand for a quarter of an hour or so than be involved in a two-and-a-half-hour service."

Canon Keith Punshon, of Ripon Cathedral, said it would be physically impossible to get everyone in the Spa Gardens and that it was "crazy" that the two events could not be held together