Huge turnout for Leamington legend's farewell

On Monday, April 30, the funeral for much-loved Hector Ashwood was held All Saints’ church in Leamington.

Hector (pictured right), who was landlord of the Talbot Inn, known as ‘Hector’s House’, died on Friday April 13, aged 85. His family were overwhelmed by the amount of people who came to say goodbye.

Rita Church, Hector’s daughter, said: “We want to say a massive thank you to everybody who attended the church and wake. We know there were lots of people there so it was a true testament to what people thought of my dad. It was quite surreal to see the amount of people there but it was lovely and dad would have been shocked to have seen that many people there. It was quite humbling to see that people had taken time out of their work to come and say goodbye.

“We want to say a thank you for all the tributes to my dad which were on Facebook and the personal cards we received. We are overwhelmed by people’s love and support that we have received by both family and friends.”

Rita added: “We had Caribbean food at the wake, which dad would have loved and everybody enjoyed the food. We had some leftovers which we donated to the charity Helping Hands. So far we have £500 in donations for Myton Hospices and £206 for Marie Curie and we want to thank people for their generosity in making donations.”