A NORTH Yorkshire hotels boss, whose businesses included The Talbot and The Green Man in Malton, has died aged 66.

Barry Turner suffered a heart attack early on Wednesday morning.

Mr Turner was managing director of the English Rose Hotels group, which also owns several hotels in Scarborough, including the Royal Hotel.

He met his future wife, Joan, at school in Castleford, moving to Scarborough in 1968 and starting a business running holiday flats.

Mrs Turner said her husband had been a chartered surveyor by trade and originally worked in local government.

She said it had always been his ambition to buy the Royal because he loved it so much.

Mrs Turner said that her husband was a private man and few things upset him.

But when the Holbeck Hall Hotel, which the family owned, collapsed into the sea in June 1993, he had been very upset.

Mr Turner, who lived in Scalby, leaves two children, David and Mark, and six grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at St Laurence's Church, Scalby, at 12.30pm on Tuesday.

Updated: 11:25 Friday, February 14, 2003