Tributes to oil industry chaplain

HUNDREDS turned out for a service to remember the chaplain who led memorials in the aftermath of last year's North Sea helicopter tragedy.

The Rev Andrew Jolly, chaplain for the UK's oil and gas industry, led a special service attended by hundreds of mourners in Aberdeen after the crash which killed 16 workers in April 2009.

The Super Puma aircraft, returning from BP's Miller platform, ditched into the sea about 15 miles off the Aberdeenshire coast.

The Rev Jolly died at his home on Tuesday at the age 54 after battling cancer. Yesterday hundreds attended the service of thanksgiving in the Kirk of St Nicholas Uniting in Aberdeen. A service of interment took place in Myrus Cemetery in Macduff yesterday.

Trisha O'Reilly, a trustee of the Aberdeen Oil Industry Chaplaincy Trust who went to the thanksgiving service, said: "It was a full church. There must have been over 500 people there. A very good turnout. It really did bear witness to the high degree of admiration and respect with which Andrew Jolly was held in the community."

Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil and Gas UK, who was at the service, said: "There was a very good representation of the local politicians and a lot of the oil and gas industry company leaders were there as well. It was a very fitting tribute to a great man."

In July this year the Rev Jolly, from Aberdeen, was awarded an MBE by the Queen for his work.

He is survived by his wife Chrissie, their two daughters Sarah and Alexandra, his mother and his sister.