THE former Mayor of New York has personally thanked the firefighters of old York for supporting their US counterparts in their time of desperate need.

Rudy Giuliani, the man whose response to the September 11 terror attacks won worldwide admiration and plaudits, was a speaker at a business convention in Harrogate yesterday.

He spoke movingly of the courage of firefighters who went into the World Trade Centre to rescue people and lost their lives.

He told of one firefighter who was on sick leave when the planes crashed into the twin towers, who drove to the nearest fire station, donned a uniform and headed for the blaze.

"He had every reason to turn back. He had been ordered to be off duty. He would probably have been disciplined had he survived, but something made him drive into hell. He brought two groups out of the tower and went back in, and never came back."

The former mayor later told a press conference how the solidarity and fundraising efforts of firefighters in York and elsewhere after the attack had helped his city's firefighters and their widows.

The Evening Press presented him with copies of a special front page from September 28, 2001, in which we reported how York firefighters had raised almost £30,000 through street and pub collections and how our readers then raised another £4,000 within six days.

Rudy signed one copy with the message: "Thank you for your support in our time of need" and handed it back for us to present to the fire station in York.

He said: "It helped our firefighters and their widows to know that the thoughts of firefighters in York and all over the world were with them."

Rudy's wife, Judith, whom he married just a week ago, said 343 firefighters had lost their lives on September 11.

Earlier, Rudy had spoken to hundreds of businessmen and women at the Yorkshire International Business Convention 2003 of his admiration for George Bush and Tony Blair for standing up to dictators and terrorists.

Updated: 10:08 Saturday, June 07, 2003