A MEMORIAL service for a much-loved music teacher will be held in Kirkby Lonsdale next week.

David Chapman was the head of music at Casterton Girls School for more than two decades and later held the same position at Giggleswick School.

The tribute service will take place at St Mary's Parish Church in Kirkby Lonsdale and will feature performances from some of his former pupils.

His wife Julie Chapman said that her husband did 'so many different things' in his life to do with music but the girls' choir was his 'main love'.

"He had enormous energy. Once term started he would be involved fully in everything he did," she said. "He supported a lot of the girls in GCSE's and A Levels.

"He just loved working with them. Once he died the amazing amount of lovely things that the girls have written - how David changed girls' lives and a lot of them have taken up music because of him which is an enormous tribute to have touched young lives like that.

"My family and I have been overwhelmed by the responses that we have got since he died."

Mrs Chapman met her husband in 1986 when he was working as a conductor at a ballet company in Manchester and she was a ballet dancer.

The couple were married for 29 years, moving from Manchester to Kirkby Lonsdale in 1992 when Mr Chapman secured his job at Casterton.

He stopped working more than a year ago due to ill health and passed away, aged 56, in January, following a four year battle with cancer.

The service will take place on Saturday May 27 at 6pm and there is an open invitation for any former Casterton girls or staff who wish to sing in the choir to go to rehearsal at 4pm.

Mary Hamilton, who worked with Mr Chapman at Casterton will conduct, and the music will be 'The Lord bless you and keep you' by John Rutter and the Amen.

"It very much was something the girls loved singing with David," Mrs Chapman said of the Rutter composition.