HE has maintained the church clock in a North Yorkshire village for a quarter of a century - and used to wind it up every week until he and his wife eventually raised £6,000 to get it electrified.

Now Frank Dean’s work for his community and the church in Church Fenton, near Tadcaster, is being recognised with an invitation to receive Maundy Money from the Queen at York Minster next month.

Mr Dean, 86, said he had only just relinquished his role in looking after the clock at St Mary’s parish church.

He said that for many years, he would climb a narrow spiral staircase in the clock tower every Friday to wind the clock’s mechanisms.

Mr Dean said: “It was freezing in winter.”

He said that in the 1990s, he and his late wife, Heather, launched a fundraising campaign to get the clock electrified, and won overwhelming support from local residents. After that, he was still responsible for routine maintenance to ensure it continued working and to change the time by an hour each autumn and spring.

Heather was also a church warden for 36 years, and Frank said he viewed the Maundy Money as much a recognition of her work as his.

Mr Dean, who worked for many years for British Rail in the York area, said that he regularly went into the local primary school to talk about the history of the railways, which run through the village, until he retired a few years ago.

“The children called me Uncle Frank,” he said.

He also was a keen amateur film-maker from the 1950s onwards, and when he heard about the looming Beeching cuts in the early 1960s, set about filming the routes and stations which were set for the axe. He said some of the films were now stored in the Yorkshire Film Archive.

• Eighty-six men and 86 women, one for each year the Queen has been alive, have been invited to receive the Maundy money at the traditional service at York Minster on April 5.

Are you, or is your relative, receiving Maundy Money at the Minster? Phone Mike Laycock on 01904 567132 or email mike.laycock@thepress.co.uk