A New Orleans-style band will play at a memorial service tomorrow (Saturday, August 29) for a Keighley man who died of leukaemia at his second home in Spain.
Cameron Kerr, 49, of View Road, Keighley, told his family that when his time was up this was the kind of send-off he wanted. So the Shipley-based Phoenix New Orleans Parade Band will round off a celebration-of-life service at St Mark's Church, Utley, tomorrow - at 3.30pm - with an outdoor performance specially dedicated to Mr kerr.
He died making a success of his latest business venture - a fish and chip shop in Palma, Majorca, which he ran with his wife Pauline.
A service celebrating his life was also held on the island where the couple, who have a 13-year-old daughter Alex, had a home.
The Keighley service has been arranged to give family members in Britain who could not make it to Majorca a chance to pay their respects.
The couple were married at St Mark's and would have celebrated their 28th wedding anniversary on Saturday.
Mrs Kerr says: "Cameron was a man who loved life and lived for today, and this is the kind of service he wanted. He always said he wanted a New Orleans band to play after he saw it in a James Bond film."
He was a former pupil of Keighley Boys' Grammar School, moving to the town from his birthplace in Ayr, Scotland, when his parents - the late Robert and Margaret Kerr - moved here when he was a teenager.
At one time he owned Keighley Taxis. Later, he and Mrs Kerr taught mathematics in Zimbabwe in Africa before returning to set up the Sound Images video wholesale company in Keighley.
Mr Kerr was also involved in the publishing business, establishing two weekly newspapers in the West Highlands in partnership with his sister, Moira Kerr.
John Pashley, leader of the Phoenix New Orleans Parade Band, says they have regular bookings for carnivals and parades. "We have played a few funerals although this is our first actual memorial service," he adds. "We will be playing uplifting music."
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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