His family kept a summer solstice vigil, at his favourite viewpoint, Stoodley Pike, above Mankinholes, to celebrate his life last Sunday (Father's Day).

Inspired by the legendary 1930s Kinder Scout mass trespass which sought to open up access to the Pennine moors, Tony Darby, the late father of Hilary Darby, of Innovation, Hebden Bridge, and father-in-law of David Fletcher, chairman of Pennine Heritage, was a lifelong champion of the South Pennines.

Tony led the first ever official YHA (Youth Hostels Association) walking party along the then newly created Pennine Way, helping to scout this, the first of Britains' National Trails which strides through Upper Calderdale on its 200 mile route from the Peak District to Scotland.

As treasurer in the 1960s of the Yorkshire Region of the YHA, Tony was a frequent visitor to Mankinholes Youth Hostel and its nearby monument Stoodley Pike, a favourite viewpoint. For decades, Tony was also a leading figure in the Ramblers Assocation and the Holiday Fellowship walking group.

"Ahead of his time," said daughter Hilary "He saw the power of this landscape and passion of its human story. While his fellow walkers rated the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District, Tony chose instead what were then the Cinderella landscapes of the Upper Calder Valley, Blackstone Edge and Bronte Country"

"Dad called it a lived in landscape," said Hilary "and that's been a phrase I've been proud to borrow as editor of Pennine magazine and the South Pennine Visitor tourism newspaper ".

In a life dedicated to service, war veteran Tony Darby was an army medic captured at the fall of Singapore and survivor of the Japanese POW camps on the infamous 'Bridge on the River Kwai' Railway. A teacher of the deaf in Bradford, he moved to Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, to live with family who were at his bedside when he died after watching the recent D-Day Commemorations on June 6.

His funeral was held in Scotland and he was carried into church to the sound of "I was a Rambler from Manchester Way" and out to "Keep right on to the end of the road".