Mourners gathered to pay their respects to a close friend at a York pub where he was an almost permanent fixture.

Friends said Peter Fogg, who died last week aged 78, was a "light-hearted man with a brilliant sense of humour" who will be sadly missed.

His funeral cortege started off at the York Arms, in High Petergate, a pub which staff said he had visited seven days a week for the past decade.

Mr Fogg, a retired nurse who worked for 32 years at Clifton Hospital, died only six weeks after his son, also named Peter, died of a liver condition, aged 45.

Pub worker Lanna Thornton said: "He was a regular and came in seven days a week at opening time. He was a very light-hearted man with a brilliant sense of humour. Everybody loved him and he had been coming here for almost ten years. We saw him for at least a couple of hours every day."

Mr Fogg, a widower, served in the Durham Light Infantry during World War Two and remained a member of the Navy Army Air Force Institute.

Martin Kelly, who regularly met Mr Fogg at the York Arms for six years, said: "We are all going to miss him. He was a right character."

A service was held at York Crematorium yesterday afternoon, followed by a wake at the York Arms.

Mourners are pictured outside the York Arms with the hearse transporting Peter Fogg's coffin covered by a Union Flag.

Updated: 10:49 Friday, June 20, 2003