A York pensioner has received a royal reply to a letter she wrote praising the Queen Mother.

Joan Merryweather, 77, wrote to the Evening Press and the Duke of York detailing her outrage at the comments of clergyman Dr John Roden, who claimed the Queen Mother should have no link to the Minster Bells Appeal.

Now Joan has received a reply to her letter from the Duke of York thanking her for her support.

Joan wrote to the Duke following his recent visit to the Minster.

In the letter, the Duke said that he "much appreciated her thoughts" about his grandmother and said he was "touched" by her words.

He said that he was passing on the letter to Clarence House so the Queen Mother herself could read it.

Joan said: "I'm very pleased that he replied to me. The Queen Mother is a great influence and as long as she keeps going, we keep going."

Joan's mother Annie Lund met the Queen Mother in January 1926 when she visited York's old county hospital and it was this meeting that Joan detailed in her letter to the Duke.

She said: "I think the Duke of York is very like his grandmother. He has a very nice personality. I've a feeling that being in the Navy gave him that.

"My husband was a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy and he was just like the Duke."

Dr Roden, vicar of Appleton Roebuck, has apologised since saying in a letter to the Evening Press that the Queen Mother was the "grandmother of an incredibly dysfunctional family" and that he doubted her impact on life in Britain.

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