Memorial service at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds for Suffolk author Ronald Blythe

Church figures and members of the public came together for a service of thanksgiving in honour of Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield, who died in January at the age of 100.

The service was held this afternoon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds.

Mr Blythe, who died on January 14, was a devout Anglican, and a lay reader at the cathedral.

Although he attained a national reputation, he prided himself on his Suffolk connections, having been born in Acton and educated in Sudbury.

His most famous book, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village, is a depiction of life in a community in rural Suffolk.

Among the local dignitaries paying tribute to him was the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk, Clare, Countess of Euston.

She read an excerpt from the 'Word from Wormingford,' Mr Blythe's weekly column in the Church Times.

In an address at the cathedral, the Bishop of St Edmundsbury, the Right Rev Martin Seeley, acknowledged Mr Blythe's Christian faith as a guiding force in his life.

The bishop said: "His faith was demonstrated – and demonstrated very clearly – in his ministry as a reader, in his preaching, in his writings, and not least, for many years, in his weekly 'Word from Wormingford,' which I suspect is the only piece in the Church Times that many of us consistently read!

"For that, he has been rightly described as the Church of England's poet."

He added: "Through his writings, and through his acquaintance, those who knew him came to see his faith not as a matter of the head, or an affair of the heart, but a way of life, of being, of seeing."

The writer Julia Blackburn was also at hand to remember her fellow author.

She said of Mr Blythe: "Whenever I sat facing Ronnie ... I was always saddened by the way his face changed.

"At one moment, I saw a fragile man, growing older year by year, and, in the next, I saw a boy, filled with laughter and energy."