WORDS penned by a world-famous Leigh author live on in Cambodia. James Hilton was born in a terraced house in Wilkinson Street, Leigh in 1900 and died in Long Beach, California on December 22, 1954.

His utopian novel "Lost Horizon" - about the search for the mythical Shangri-la - shot him to fame in 1933 and he also had enormous success with "Goodbye, Mr Chips" and "Random Harvest."

Athertonian Alice Cook of Mealhouse Court, Atherton contacted Alan Calvert who compiles the daily 'Looking Back' feature in the Journal's sister publication the Bolton Evening News to tell him that a relative has sent her a book mark from the hotel "Shangri-la" on Penang Island, Cambodia.

She writes: "Each evening, on retiring, guests would find on their pillow a small orchid and a beribboned book-mark with an excerpt from the book 'Lost Horizon' written by James Hilton of Leigh."

Alice says James Hilton was not mentioned in a recent book on Leigh and adds: "Poor James - remembered in Cambodia and forgotten in Leigh - but Looking Back can remedy that!"

Well, I remember the films, but Alan had to confess he did not know that the author of the stories came from Leigh.

But plenty of people in Leigh, however, do.

In 2000 - the centenary of his birth - council officials organised the unveiling of a plaque on the house at the heart of the town.

During the same year a James Hilton Society was established in Nottingham dedicated to maintaining interest in his life and work.

Research shows that Mr Hilton, the son of a schoolteacher, was educated at Walthamstow Grammar School and Leys School, Cambridge, where he took a first class honours degree.

He became a journalist on the Manchester Guardian before making an exceptionally successful switch from news to fiction.

He moved to Hollywood in 1935 and became a major player in the film industry - at one time he was reputedly the highest paid script-writer in Hollywood.

The screenplay he produced for Mrs Miniver won him an Academy Award.

Friends included film stars like Ronald Colman and Errol Flynn and his English charm was a hit with the ladies.

He sat on the governing board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was vice-president of the Screen Writers' Guild.

But in spite of his success, his private life was unhappy and his marriage to Alice Brown ended after two years.

A week after his divorce he courted an unknown starlet, Galina Kopineck.

They married almost immediately only to divorce acrimoniously eight years later.

In October, 1954 Hilton was diagnosed with liver cancer.

The lad from Leigh who became one of Hollywood's hottest properties died two months later.