A FORMER mayoress has spoken for the first time about a rift which has seen her ‘fired’ from one of Burnley’s most prestigious positions.

Joan Heginbotham says she feels “saddened” after being asked to step down as the official companion of mayor Coun Ida Carmichael.

The 67-year-old, of Park Road, Cliviger, said: “It is a terrible thing to happen.

“I am an honest girl and I have not criticised the mayor, as I could have done.”

Well-known in Burnley as a long-standing volunteer for Pendleside Hospice and the wife of Cliviger with Worsthorne councillor David Heginbotham, she says she was “very proud” to accept her chains of office.

Friends of the former mayoress rallied behind her, in the wake of the announcement, amid claims that she felt “sidelined” by the increasing influence of the mayor’s husband Gavin Carmichael, as consort.

Mrs Heginbotham added: “I have spoken from the heart – I am absolutely devastated.

“It has been not been easy and I just want people that know me, as a volunteer at the hospice, who hold me in high regard, to know how I feel. It has been very awkward.”

The mayoress was told of her fate during a telephone call from the chief executive’s department at Burnley council, shortly before a statement was released, confirming her departure last week.

Chief executive Steve Rumbelow said that the relationship between the mayor and mayoress had “broken down”.

But the statement also placed on record the mayor’s thanks for her contribution to the first citizen’s fundraising campaign, in aid of Pendleside Hospice and breast cancer services in Burnley and Padiham.