A woman has honoured the memory of her late father by having his ashes scattered on the iconic locomotive on which he once worked.

Evonne Harwood, of Oswaldtwistle, lost her father, David, in 2014 aged 75, and has already scattered some of his ashes.

When she found out that the Scotsman would be making an historic appearance in East Lancashire over two weekends she decided it would make for a fitting final resting place for dad who also lived in Oswaldtwistle.

She said: “My late father ended up working on the buses, but for a short time during the 1950s, he worked on the Flying Scotsman and took it from Accrington to Crewe.

David Harwood of Oswaldtwistle

“I’ve scattered some of his ashes in Rhyl in North Wales but when I heard the Scotsman was coming back, I thought it would be a nice idea to scatter some of his ashes into the fire pit.”

Evonne’s partner, Guy Curtis, got in touch with his cousin, Rory Rushman, who works with the East Lancashire Railway at Bury Bolton Street.

Guy said: “Evonne’s father used to be a fireman, stoking the fires in the engine on the Scotsman, and when we heard it was running from Bury, I got in touch with my cousin to see if we could get on and scatter some of her father’s ashes.

“He called the night before to confirm it.

“We went down to Bolton Street and climbed up into the engine and scattered his ashes into the fire pit. We just wanted to say thank you to the people who helped to make this possible. Evonne didn’t know anything about it, it was my idea and we went down to Bury Bolton Street station on the Saturday morning.”

Evonne said it was a fascinating experience to be on the train.

She said: “It was amazing, I never realised how big it was. Usually when people see it the train is at platform level, but we were below the platform, it was quite hard to get up into it.

“It was fascinating to stand in the spot where my father once stood.”

The Flying Scotsman completed the final weekend of its run on the East Lancashire Railway on Saturday, January 16, and Sunday, January 17, in its wartime black livery after a £4.2m restoration by Riley and Son Ltd in Bury.

The Flying Scotsman leaving Bury Bolton Street station on the East Lancs Railway for the first time since it's multi million pound renovation.