TRIBUTES have been paid to a highly-respected and much-loved figure in the ballroom dancing world following his death.

Jack Briggs, 95, who lived in Queensbury for most of his life, was still judging competitions into his nineties and his family have been flooded with tributes.

He fell unexpectedly ill in 2018 and had not been in the best of health since then. He then fell ill in May with Covid-19.

His daughter Jackie, 68, described him as a “huge, proud, dominating, unbelievable man who has now left the biggest hole in my heart” and added that “Mr Invincible took his final bow”.

Jack and his wife Joyce, who died in 2004, both loved dancing and it played a major part in their lives.

The pair met at a dance in Halifax in 1943 and married in 1950 at All Saints’ Church in the town, before settling in Queensbury and going on to have Jackie in 1951.

In the years following World War Two, people were eager to dance to big bands in ballrooms and Butlins resorts became the place to do just that.

Jack and Joyce where amateur dancers when they won at the first Butlins Dance Festival in 1951 – with six-week-old Jackie in tow – who later followed in their dancing footsteps.

In 1955, the couple turned professional and scooped up many prizes over the years until the 1960s when professional dancers could no longer take part.

Then in 1961, the pair opened their own dance school – the Freesia Ballroom in Queensbury – which they ran until the 1990s and made “many champions” throughout their teaching. After selling the dance school, they then taught in the village’s Victoria Hall.

They were also prolific in the national ‘Come Dancing Championships’ where they were captains of the Jack & Joyce Briggs Formation Team.

And over the years they won many awards in recognition of their talent, particularly in the Carl Allen awards, which are the ‘Oscars’ of the dance world.

In 2008, Jack was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in those awards and another in the Classique de Danse awards in 2015 at the age of 90.

Aside from his dancing, Jack received a first class honours degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London in 1948 and ended up working for the former West Riding County Council before becoming deputy chief engineer for Bradford Council until his retirement in 1980.

Left distraught at Joyce’s death in 2004, Jack said he did not want to continue with dancing, but with support and encouragement from his family went on to make many more memories and have many more achievements right up until his nineties.

Jackie said: “He loved his family, he loved his grandchildren, great grandchildren.

“The condolence cards are so lovely, they’ve said so much about him, it’s just all overwhelming.

“He lived life to the absolute full, with everything he’s achieved.

“He was so much to so many. Everybody says what a wonderful man he was, how he helped over the years.

“He was a true gentleman, a legend.”

She said he was “loved and respected” and would be sorely missed and never forgotten by all in the dancing world.

Jack is remembered by Jackie and her husband Norman, his granddaughters Rebecca and Victoria and great-grandchildren Mason, Jenson, Larna, Miller and Ella, and his sister Betty.

His funeral will be held today at Parkwood Crematorium, Elland. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, it will be limited, but the cortege will pass the Victoria Hall in Queensbury at around 11.30am, going up the High Street and Ambler Thorn before reaching the crematorium.