MORE than 100 people paid their respects to a well-known vicar from Brent Knoll at his funeral at the village’s Parish Church on December 31.

Reverend Kenneth John Piper, who had been chaplain to the Weston Royal British Legion and was speaker’s secretary to the town’s Probus club, as well as working in different churches across the South West, died on December 19, aged 81.

His widow Pam said: “The funeral went very well, we had a celebration of laughter instead of tears, which is what he would have wanted.

“I left a cross of flowers on his grave, saying ‘thank you’, which was my way of a tribute and being thankful that he had spent his life with me.”

Instead of flowers, Reverend Piper requested that donations be made to war veteran charity Combat Stress.