A CHURCH community in Yate has said goodbye to a young member of its congregation who lost his 10-year battle with a brain tumour.

St Mary’s Church was full for the funeral of Jon Fredrickson last Thursday afternoon as friends and family paid tribute to the 26-year-old who passed away on May 18 at St Peter’s Hospice. The coffin was carried in to the sound of Hallelujah, by Blake, and set the tone for an emotional service led by lay preacher Wully Perks.

Mr Perks, wearing a Bristol Rovers FC scarf in tribute to Jon’s favourite team, said: "This church was so special to Jon so it is here we say our farewell for a while.

"We are also here to give our thanks for Jon’s life. He was a young man who in his short life so touched and enriched our lives by his great courage."

Jon went to St John’s Mead Primary School, in Chipping Sodbury, then Brimsham Green School where, at the age of 16, he was first diagnosed with a tumour. Despite his illness, Jon took up an apprenticeship in business administration with Bristol City Council and won the chief executive’s employee of the year award and an excellence in citizenship award in 2006. He went on to work for the Department of Work and Pensions and the Job Centre in Bath.

His mum Jacky, of Argyle Drive, told the Gazette: "He was very courageous and really didn’t complain. He had every right to moan and groan and feel sorry for himself but he never ever complained, even to the end."

The congregation, including fellow cancer sufferers, school friends and staff from St Peter’s, sang Jon’s favourite hymns Abide With Me, The Lord’s My Shepherd and The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended.

Hospice chaplain the Rev Bert Sawyer, who was with Jon when he died, said he had felt a calling to go to his bedside and arrived as he took his last breath.

He said: "He was a young man who trusted in God."

The service heard how Jon had attempted to visit the furthest points north, south, west and east in Great Britain but only managed the eastern most point before he became too ill. He was said to have had a love of photography and had been picturing the changes in season around St Mary’s for the last year.

The Rev Iain Macfarlane said Jon’s life had not been a waste.

"Those 26 years were a privilege, not a waste," he said. "It was good to know Jon, good to laugh with him, good to be teased by him, good to have a pint with him. It was not a waste."

After the commendation, Beth Rowley’s Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground was played before Jon’s body was interred at Westerleigh Crematorium. He leaves behind his parents Jacky and Roy and twin sisters Emily and Rachel, 32.