The upper dale has lost a community champion after a battle with leukaemia.
Middleton-in-Teesdale and Newbiggin parish councillor John Miller was 80 when he died last month.
In his time, John served on the village’s chamber of commerce, served as treasurer to Mickleton Village Hall when it was fundraising for a new building, served as treasurer to Eggleston Agricultural Show for many years, and formed a group to improve the Teesdale Way.
He was born in Scarborough on June 30 1945, to Charles and Mary Miller, while his father was a cinema manager in North Wales.
His older sister Annetta was also born in Scarborough.
John’s wife Judith Mashiter said: “Their mother went to Scarborough for confinement because John’s father was a keen cricket person and if you have a son and you want him to play for Yorkshire, he has to be born in Yorkshire.
“The two children were born in Yorkshire just in case they were boys and just in case they became good cricketers.”
Later the family moved to Middlesbrough where John attended Stockton Grammar School.
Uniquely at age 17, he was offered an exchange visit with a lad from Sweden who wanted to learn English.
From this, a life-long friendship was formed with Dr Lars Fröberg, and their families would meet up annually for holidays across Europe, as well as visits to each other’s homes.
After school he worked briefly at an accountant’s office before moving into a banking career with Martins Bank, which would later become Barclays Bank.
He worked at various branches throughout the North East, including two years in Jersey, before ending up at Middleton-in-Teesdale in 1986 where he became branch manager.
It was through Middleton-in-Teesdale Chamber of Commerce that he met his wife, who at the time was running her own design and print company, Quetzal.
Judith said: “Being the bank manager there, certain things came with the territory, so he was for a number of years the treasurer for Eggleston Show, he was treasurer of Mickleton Village Hall and that was at the time they were fundraising for the new village hall.”
He was also a trustee for the Teesdale Radio Link Fund, which was set up to supply GPs with short wave radios at a time when not everyone had telephones.
In addition, he was a founding member of Middleton Plus, a development trust which set up a tourist information centre among other things.
He also developed a volunteer group called Footpath Focus.
Judith said: “At the time, Andy Mitchell was on the parish council and he did daily dog walks in the village and bemoaned the state of some of the footpaths. That was the original aim, to tidy footpaths and then he got onto the Teesdale Way bits and all the step replacements and so on.”
At its peak, about a dozen people gave up their time to help keep the upper dale rights of way clear, and the group won a County Durham Environment Award for their work in 2022.
When not working for the community, he enjoyed going out on his motorbike, either by himself or with a group from the village.
Judith said: “He was into motorbiking. He did get an old Tiger 110 and had that for a few years, but then he decided he’d rather have a bike where if he turned the key it started. He preferred riding to ‘mechanising’ as he put it.
“John liked to go to Scotland for the day – he often did 200 miles in a day. Round Kielder to the borders, the Yorkshire coast and the Lake District.”
He also took up beekeeping about eight years ago and was fascinated by the creatures. This year he had a bumper harvest of heather honey which will be shared with family and friends.
He was diagnosed with acute leukaemia two years ago and had to travel to Bishop Auckland Hospital for 14 chemotherapy injections each month, often travelling by motorbike.
Judith said: “It tickled John that most people didn’t think he was 80.
“He always has been fit, he liked working out in the gym and even through the two years of treatment, he always said the drugs are doing one bit, I’ll do my bit by keeping fit and healthy, and eat well.”
