'Dolly Parton was lovely, she grabbed my hand'

Dolly Parton's impact on Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire has been shared in a host of tributes to the "icon and legend".

The country singer's death was announced on Tuesday and her team said she had "a brief battle with cancer".

Andrew Percy, a former MP for Brigg and Goole, was instrumental in setting up Imagination Libraries in North Lincolnshire and Goole, a scheme Parton launched in Britain in 2007.

Percy, who met Parton when she performed in Leeds, said: "She was lovely, really sweet. She grabbed my hand. She just seemed to be the Dolly Parton that we all think we know and love behind the scenes."

The Imagination Library is a reading scheme set up by Parton initially in the US, after being motivated by her father's inability to read.

It provides a free book in the post every month for children from birth up until the age of five.

Percy, a former primary school teacher, helped set up the North Lincolnshire Imagination Library and the Goole and Snaith Imagination Library in 2013, which later became the East Riding Imagination Library.

North Lincolnshire Council celebrated that it had delivered its one millionth book as part of the scheme in January last year - and continues to fund the project.

Percy said they received a personalised video message from Parton for the North Lincolnshire library's 10-year anniversary in 2023.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Percy said: "I grew up with a dad who had Dolly on.

"Certainly growing up in a northern working class community, country was a big part of that."

Percy said he decided to set up the libraries "partly because I was a country fan and I'd been a schoolteacher".

Rolf Sperr is the former president of the Cleethorpes branch of the Rotary Club.

Parton supported one of her children's libraries in the seaside resort, and became an honorary member in 2014.

Sperr said: "She was absolutely brilliant.

"She was one of a kind with her songs and with her spending as a philanthropist.

"She never forgot her roots of where she came from."

Brendan Bugg is the marketing and sales manager at the Embassy Theatre on Skegness seafront.

Speaking on BBC Radio Lincolnshire, Bugg said: "Icon, legend, performer, writer, producer.

"There's very few people in the world of music that have made the contribution that Dolly did to live entertainment and what we do."

Bugg added that, while the words "legend and icon" are "probably used a little readily", they "certainly applied" to Dolly.

"Our calendar is punctuated with her songs over the course of a month," he added.

Rob Waltham, leader of North Lincolnshire Council, said: "I was fortunate enough to meet Dolly several times over the years and what always came across was how deeply she believed in what the Imagination Library could do.

"She understood the enormous difference something as simple as a book can make in the earliest years of a child's life.

"Her music made her a global icon, but there is a part of her legacy right here in North Lincolnshire – in homes, on bookshelves and in the lives of children who discovered the joy of reading.

"That will last for generations, and we will always be enormously grateful for it."

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