A FORMER curate at St Augustine's Church, Tonge Moor, has died at the age of 75.

The Rev Roy Fellows served at the church for five years from 1956 and kept in touch with many of his former Bolton parishioners, who remember him fondly.

Mr Fellows, who had a paralysed arm, was born in 1930 in Ashton-under-Lyne.

He went on to get his BA and MA degrees after completing National Service.

After graduating from Keble College, Oxford, his first job was at St Augustine's, where he was ordained as a deacon. Initially known as Brother Roy, he worked with Canon Roger Davison, Father Hugh Glaisyer and Father Trevor Southgate under the rule of the Company of Mission Priests.

He was made a priest in 1957 and became senior assistant priest before leaving to work in parishes in Manchester, Liverpool and Leigh.

He became administrator at the Shrine of Our Lady Walsingham, in Norfolk, in 1987.

Mr Fellows left the Church of England after objecting to the decision to ordain women priests, and was accepted into the Roman Catholic Church.

He retired to Sedbergh, Cumbria, where he lived until he suffered a stroke a few years ago.

Ill health forced him to move into a nursing home in Grange-over-Sands, where he was cared for by Augustinian Nursing Sisters until his death last month.