Bob HINGE – wins flight in Lancaster

Former Leigh Man wins Flight in a Lancaster

Bob Hinge, a former Leigh resident living on The Green, had half a page about him in the Mail On Sunday recently.

Bob had moved to Leigh when he was a boy, living with his mother and grandmother in half of what is now Old Wood Cottage on the Green.  His mother had been Barbara Faircloth before her marriage and, when the marriage broke up, she came back to the Leigh of her parents and many other Faircloth relatives in the village.  Bob went to Judd School and was very keen on railways and – perhaps more important for this story – was very keen on planes.  After growing up in the village, Bob got married and moved to the Midlands.

When he was approaching his 68th birthday, the family arranged a special treat – a flight in a Tiger Moth.  But without telling him, his wife, Andrea, entered him for a Mail on Sunday competition to win a flight on the new restored Lancaster bomber.  There were 16,984 entrants but Bob was the lucky winner and – needless to say – the Mail On Sunday had a good story with pictures of Bob in the cockpit; and Maurice Martin from Garden Cottages, Bob’s stepfather, heard about everything in more detail.

The article was printed in the Mail on Sunday on 31 August 2014. We have a copy in our Archive: but you can also view it at “MAIL Online” via www.dailymail.co.uk.

Parish Magazine Article: Dec 2014: by Chris Rowley