More than 100 people packed a chapel to say goodbye to taxi driver Godfrey Hillier, who has died aged 63.

Two taxis driven by Mr Hillier, of Sandy Lane, Blackbird Leys, Oxford, during his time at Radio Taxis, of Warwick Street, east Oxford, carried his family behind the hearse to the service at Oxford Crematorium.

The Rev James Ramsey, of the Church of the Holy Family, in Blackbird Leys Road, Blackbird Leys, related to the congregation how Mr Hillier, who was known as 'Goff', loved his golf and once landed two holes in one at North Oxford Golf Club, where he was a member. His ashes will be scattered at one of the holes. where a plaque in his memory will also be placed on a bench there.

Mr Hillier took the game up at the age of 50 and also joined the Scufflers, a golf society within the club.

The father-of-three was born in 1935 in Hungerford and moved to Evans Lane, Kidlington, a year later because of his father Henry Hillier's job as a railway signalman with British Rail.

Mr Hillier, who was one of nine children, was a pupil at Gosford Hill School, Kidlington, and a member of the army cadets in the village. He and his twin brother, Graham, joined the South Staffordshire Regiment as volunteers at the age of 17 and Godfrey was in the Corps of Drums for three years.

Godfrey's daughter, Sandra Hillier, 25, played the Last Post at the service on Thursday while a bugle, which her father managed to play two days before his death from cancer, was placed on the coffin.

After leaving the Army in 1956, he met his wife Norma and married her 11 months later. He then worked at Morris Motors in Cowley and they moved to their own house in the then new Blackbird Leys in 1960.

Mr Hillier also helped run his twin brother's bed and breakfast in Steeple Aston for two years from 1981 before working for different taxi firms in Oxford up till a few months before his death.

Mr Hillier leaves his wife, 60, two daughters, Kim Taylor, 38, and Sandra, son Stephen, 41, and four grandchildren, Steven, 18, Hayley, 15, Jo, ten, and Tom, eight.

The family asked for donations to go to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and have raised nearly £500 for the charity.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.