The Requiem Mass for Father Neil McNicholas took place at St Mary’s Cathedral on Friday February 14 before his burial in Redcar Cemetery.
Father Neil passed died peacefully at the Butterwick Hospice in Stockton on the morning of Friday January 24.
The night before the funeral his body was received into St Mary and St Romuald’s Church, Yarm, the parish he had served before his retirement in 2023.
Father Neil, who was 76, had been ill in James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough for several weeks before going into the hospice.
Born in 1948, Father Neil grew up in Redcar, originally in the Sacred Heart Parish, and attended St Mary’s College in Middlesbrough from 1959 to 1964, when it was the Marist grammar school.
After leaving school he worked for five years as a lab technician with Dorman-Long and ICI and also became involved in the establishment of the new parish of St Alban’s in Redcar.
Father Neil spent some time in the seminary at Osterley before working with the Jesuits as a lay-missionary, teaching and coaching sport in Zambia.
He studied at the Jesuits’ Portland novitiate for 18 months, which included working at a parish on an Indian Reservation in Washington State.
In 1978 he left the seminary and spent five years working in the Middle East, where he helped organise the catechetics programme in a community parish, even though  Christian churches were officially banned.
He then did a degree in social sciences at the University of South Florida before returning to the Middle East to work.
After coming home in 1988, Father Neil went to Ushaw College to train for the priesthood. He also worked in hospital chaplaincy and joined the religious broadcast team at BBC Radio Cleveland.
He was ordained priest in July 1993 – Bishop John’s first ordination for the diocese – and was appointed assistant priest at Christ the King, Thornaby, also serving as a prison chaplain.
In 1995 he became priest-in-charge at St Peter’s, South Bank, and was also asked to take on the ministry of port chaplain with the Apostleship of the Sea.
In 1999 he was appointed as parish priest at St Andrew’s, Teesville, in addition to his responsibilities at St Peter’s, the two parishes eventually being amalgamated in January 2000, along with St Anne’s, Eston, two years later. He was also “in-store chaplain” at the local Asda supermarket.
His next posting was to St Hilda’s in Whitby before a move to St Gabriel’s, Ormesby, Middlesbrough, also serving Corpus Christi, Middlesbrough, and St Alphonsus, North Ormesby.
In 2014, he moved to the parishes of St Patrick’s and Christ the King in Thornaby and he served in Yarm until his retirement in 2023.
Father Neil was a talented writer and he updated Canon Bob Carson’s Centenary History of the Diocese to mark its 150th anniversary and Father Anthony Storey’s History of the Lady Chapel.
He was also a regular contributor to newspapers including the Yorkshire Post and the Catholic Post.
Please keep Father Neil’s family and friends in your prayers.
May he rest in peace and rise in glory.