LAST respects were paid to local heritage lover and former Star columnist Chris Coffey at his funeral today.
The service took place at St Helens Crematorium on Monday morning, March 27 as people gathered in the Crematorium's chapel room up to remember Chris, who died aged 74 last autumn.
Chris, from Sutton, wrote the Coffey Time column in the Star, providing readers with snippets about St Helens culture and heritage each week.
He was a 'lifelong lover of local history'
The service heard details of Chris' life, and how he was “a lifelong lover of local history” and that it was “fitting he became the author of Coffey Time, the popular informative column in the St Helens Star”.
It was said how Chris was involved with the St Helens Heritage Network, and among Chris’ interests was The Cannington Shaw project, dedicated to the preservation and community usage of the historic site, near to the Steve Prescott Bridge.
The service heard that in his working life, Chris worked at a bank before moving to the Inland Revenue, working in Manchester and then in St Helens at the former College Street HMRC office.
In his younger days Chris had been a keen cyclist and also did cross-country running, and played rugby union.
It was added that Chris, who was also a music lover, ran a magazine, Rockzine, in the 1970s about the music scene in St Helens.
As the owner of hundreds of cassette tapes, Chris spent a lot of his time in later years listening to his favourite music.
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Despite illness affecting his mobility for the past two decades of his life, Chris continued to organise events.
Chris was a massive Laurel & Hardy enthusiast and member of Sons of the Desert, the Laurel and Hardy international fan club.
Chris founded an annual convention The Laurel & Harday in 1993, which still takes place in Wigan each year.
While organising the events, he invited many guest speakers over the years, from across the country and overseas and among his special guest stars were actress Jean Darling and composer Ronnie Hazlehurst and his orchestra.
Chris had also established the Bacon Grabbers tent, which ran meetings in Manchester, St. Helens and Wigan throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. He was also international correspondent for the Intra-Tent Journal for several years, which honoured the careers of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
Chris, from Sutton, attended conventions in the UK, Europe and the USA with colleague and friend Norman Leigh.
Chris also won the bid to host the International convention in 2016, which took place in Grange-over-Sands and Ulverston.
During this convention, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's hometowns of Ulverston and Harlem, Georgia, were officially twinned during a ceremony, an idea that belonged to Chris.
'A real sense of community and belonging'
It was added Chris was someone who “always had a real sense of community and belonging in the town where he lived”.
A tribute by Chris’ friend Norman was read out, which said: “He was very positive about everything in his life which helped him through his illness, he was a really positive chap to the end.
“He never complained about anything, he was really thankful that he did as much as he managed to do.
“He was really happy with the amount of things that he had done.”
Fittingly, the service was concluded with a rendition of Laurel and Hardy’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.
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