HUNDREDS of mourners gathered at the church of St Leonard and St Mary in Malton on Monday for the funeral of legendary racing journalist Tom O'Ryan.

The church was packed, with the adjacent church hall also full, so speakers were set up on the grass outside where a crowd stood in the September sunshine.

Mr O'Ryan, who died last month aged 61, was racing columnist for The Press and Gazette and Herald for many years.

Brough Scott, a fellow racing journalist and former jockey, delivered the tribute as part of a requiem mass. He spoke of the triumphs and tragedies of Tom's life; of his early career as a brilliant amateur jockey, and the time when, aged 25, and after a life of racing, he had to retire.

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Tom O'Ryan died, aged 61

"Tom was battered but always unbowed," Mr Scott said. "He didn't descend into bitterness and delusion, but set out on a new course. English had been the one subject he'd liked at school. He took a touch-typing course, then wrote to the Gazette & Herald asking why a great centre like Malton didn't have a racing feature each week. Tom wrote for them right up to this July."

This was the start of a career as a racing journalist which would see Tom win awards for his work and come to be known as the 'voice of the North'.

Mr Scott praised Tom's writing: "He took time on a feature, adding colour and understanding that no-one else could match."

When Tom won Racing Journalist of the Year in 2002, Mr Scott said that people got Tom's "quite unaffected love for the game, for the people and for the horses, and the fact that he never had a bad word with anyone."

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Mr Scott also touched on Tom's taste in TV - he liked 'I'm A Celebrity' and was a great fan of the 'Great British Bake Off' - and spoke of the life-changing accident he had in May 2013. He said: "He would have died there in his own field, but for the helicopter heroes of the air ambulance, and for the triple good fortune of having a mobile in his top pocket, having signal, and unusually, Wendy being home that morning."

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Mr Scott said Tom had been together with his partner Wendy for more than twenty years, and said that on Friday, August 5 this year: "There was a very important omission to correct. It was a beautiful, sunny Yorkshire morning as Wendy drove them to the registry office. Tom reached over and squeezed her hand and said, 'Why on earth didn't we get married twenty years ago?'"

Mr Scott said that Tom passed away 17 days later.

After the mass, Tom was laid to rest at a private ceremony in Norton cemetery. There was a retiring collection in his memory, in aid of Jack Berry House, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Marie Curie nurses.

Tom leaves behind his wife Wendy and brother Robin, as well as family, colleagues and friends.