Skipton's Mr Sport, Roger Ingham, has paid tribute to two sportsmen who made their mark on the fells of Burnsall and the Three Peaks.

TIME, alas, waits for no-one. And, in a year when a galaxy of fell-racing stars of yesteryear have already reached the final finishing line, the latest to join them has been Peter Watson who has himself clocked out - aged eighty-five.

Although fell-races wherever can now be contested without invalidating any status, things were different in Watson's heady era of the 1950s and '60s. Thus, Burnsall and the Three Peaks Race were predominantly the only two fell-race events in Craven then to be staged under the restrictive AAA / WAAA laws. And, it was at the Burnsall Feast Sports where Peter particularly made his mark as he won the historic fell-race there on seven occasions.

After a promising career in schoolboy rugby league was curtailed through injury, Watson joined his neighboring Bramley Harriers in whose colours he progressed to becoming Yorkshire Cross-Country champion. However, when club colleagues tempted him up to Burnsall, the historic Feast fell-race would become for him an annual pilgrimage for the rest of his life.

And, in view of this year's annual sports arriving in the immediate wake of his sudden farewell, many from his club - which has more latterly become Pudsey and Bramley - and where he had also been a long-time coach - those colleagues are now set to gather up in Burnsall for a celebration of Peter's life.

They might thus be encouraged to share their glowing memories with Dave Hodgson who also recently bade farewell at the age of ninety. Dave was a member of the former Leeds St. Marks club which later merged to be part of Leeds City A.C. And, amongst numerous fine achievements in both fell and cross-country elsewhere, Dave twice won Burnsall in 1958 and 1960.

Great lads, great memories them both.