A YOUNG woman who has been married in Texas is to have a blessing at the Bedale church where she was baptised 23 years ago.

The Reverend David Paton-Williams, rector of Bedale, will officiate at the ceremony at St Gregory's for Sarah Bowland, formerly Dunning, and her husband, Steve, on December 27.

Sarah was married in Houston yesterday.

She was 14 months old when taken from Houston to Yorkshire, where her parents used to live.

She was baptised at St Gregory's by Canon Frank Ledgard, the then rector.

Sarah is at medical school in San Antonio, Texas, and hopes to qualify as a doctor in about three years.

Her father, Professor Barry Dunning, is an old boy of Bedale CE Primary School and Northallerton Grammar School.

He heads a large, recently-amalgamated department of physics, space physics and astronomy at Houston university.

Prof Dunning, his wife Christine, from Northallerton, and his son plan to be at the Bedale blessing.