ORDINARY people filled a church to bid farewell to an extraordinary politician and woman at the weekend.

Young and old, housewives, lifeboat crews, fishermen and old soldiers rubbed shoulders with local MPs and civic leaders at a memorial service to Mo Mowlam, in Redcar, east Cleveland, where she was MP for 14 years.

About 300 people filled St Peter's Church, in the resort's Lord Street, to remember a woman who, despite heavy responsibilities as Northern Ireland Secretary, never forgot the people who mattered to her - the folk of Redcar. Former Redcar and Cleveland Mayor Vilma Collins, a long-time friend of the Labour MP, recalled how Mo flew to the North-East to be at the hospital bedside of Mrs Collins' husband, and how she was there to comfort her when he died.

Coun Collins said of Mo, recently voted the most popular politician of all time: "The trappings of power and privilege did not matter at all. What she was all about was making things better for everyone."

Mo was remembered for her support for mental health charity Mind and the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, and by Wheatlands Primary School, where she sang Christmas songs with the children in December 1998.

Present day Wheatlands youngsters and Marske Fishermen's Choir sang at the memorial service, together with local opera singer Suzannah Clarke.

Coun Peter Spencer, Redcar and Cleveland's Mayor, said: "She was the best ambassador the area could have had. Mo had an amazing ability to always use the language of those she was working with and so dispelled any misunderstanding of what she wanted to achieve.

"Her commitment to the area was outstanding.''

Mo's favourite poem, TS Eliot's Macavity - The Mystery Cat, was read during the service.

Close friend Jane Reast said Mo, who died aged 55 after a fall at her home in August, would always be "the cat's whiskers''.

Jon Norton, Mo's husband for ten years, said after the service that it had been more emotionally charged than the memorial attended by national and world figures in London in the autumn.

He said: "This was far more intimate and more emotionally comprehensible.

"Other places touched Mo's heart, but Redcar was her political home and it was a very lovely tribute."

Minutes before, he had told the audience attending the memorial service: "It is fantastic to feel the warmth and affection.

"I could tell when I first started coming up here how much she was loved; there aren't many politicians you can say that about."

He also shared with them the agony of seeing his wife, who had suffered from brain cancer, courageously battle against the illness.

Town officials will decide in the new year what form a permanent memorial to Mo should take.

Mr Norton said: "It is up to the people of Redcar what they would like to do. It is their choice."