HUNDREDS of people turned out to remember a headteacher who helped transform a Basingstoke school.

Tributes were paid to Jeff Threlfall, who was the executive headteacher of Everest Community College in Popley until his death from cancer last month, at a memorial service in a packed Winchester Cathedral.

Those attending included former students who had returned from university for the occasion.

The audience heard various tributes paid to the 52-year-old who was widely regarded as one of the country's best headteachers at the time of his death.

In June 2006, Mr Threlfall took on his role at the then John Hunt of Everest Community School - since renamed Everest Community College - as part of a pioneering link-up with Wildern School in Hedge End, near Southampton, where he was headteacher.

He provided support to former headteacher Lesley Phillipson and her successor, current headteacher Julie Rose, as they worked to turn the struggling school around.

The tributes at the service were led by The Reverend Sylvia Roberts, who said she was shocked to hear of the death of a relatively young man with "so many promising years ahead of him".

She said: "Jeff loved life - life in all its fullness. He loved people and company, food and drink. He loved to cook for you. He loved colour and music and dance. He loved buildings and good design. He loved to talk and argue and laugh.

"He loved his family and his kids in school. He fervently believed in, and worked for, each child and person to realise their full potential and to help them grow to their full stature."

Mr Threlfall's son Gregory paid tribute to his father's qualities, saying he was affectionate, generous, clever, funny and superbly confident.

Former Brighton Hill Community College headteacher Andy Kilpatrick also gave a tribute, as did former Hampshire education chief Andrew Seber, who said: "Thanks for a great teacher, a great man and a very good friend."

Ms Rose attended the service with members of Everest's Interim Executive Board - the school's governing body - and her assistant headteacher Keith Winstanley, who is on secondment from Wildern.

She told The Gazette: "It was a really wonderful afternoon. It was a lovely tribute to a great man.

"The Everest steel pan band played at the end. It was the wish of Jeff's wife Pam that there was something to raise people's spirits at the end of the service. It certainly did that."