A LEDBURY man who wrote for the Spectator magazine is to have the honour of a memorial service at an Oxford University college.

Godfrey Bullard, who was 78, died in November at Hereford Hospital but had just managed to make last-minute proof corrections to his second collection of humorous verse Mingled Measure, which came out this week.

Mr Bullard, who had suffered from leukaemia for around six months, had lived in Ledbury since 1996.

But he was also well-known by Spectator readers for the wealth of light verse that he published over many years.

Many of the magazine poems, around 40 in total, made their way into his first collection, Made to Measure, which had good sales.

A friend, Alan Field of Church Street, said: "He was an academic, in English literature and the classics, and was always a marvellous font of knowledge.

"Hopefully, his second book will be as well received as the first.

"Regrettably, he never lived to see that book in print."

Mr Bullard grew up in Oxford and went to acheive a master's degree from Balliol College.

Mr Field added: "He was an accomplished actor, a brilliant mimic and a master of prosody."

His memorial service will take place at Balliol College at noon on Saturday March 15, and friends and colleagues will be able to inspect copies of the book that he corrected on his death bed.

But the first copies of Mingled Measure were set to arrive at Ledbury Books and Maps this week, where manager Cherry Bentley-Taylor spoke warmly of a modest man who had accomplished so much.

She said: "He was a lovely person, very intelligent and brilliant, but someone who never threw his weight around in Ledbury.

"Many people do not realise he has gone and they come in asking, how is Godfrey?"

Before his retirement, Mr Bullard taught at a number of preparatory schools, finishing his teaching career at Rose Hill School in Tunbridge Wells.

Former colleague George Tyson said: "Everyone who knew him spoke well of him. He was an amazing person, with hidden amounts of depths of incredible intelligence."