A GLOBETROTTING traveller collapsed and died on board a flight to Hong Kong as he returned from East Lancashire to be with his girlfriend.

The flight crew on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt battled to save Thomas Richard Stanworth, 42, when he was taken ill on March 25 whilst travelling home after staying with his sister Kristin Baldwin in Claremont Drive, Clitheroe.

Now a mix-up with the Hong Kong authorities is preventing the family of Pendle-born Mr Stanworth from arranging his funeral.

His body has been flown back to Lancashire but the funeral cannot go ahead because the Hong Kong authorities have failed to provide a cause of death, despite carrying out a post mortem examination. Coroner's officer, PC Les Cherry, said an inquest would have to be held in Burnley if the information could not be provided.

But permission will only be given for a funeral if it can be established that Mr Stanworth died from natural causes.

Mr Stanworth's brother, Ted, of Carr Hall Road, Nelson, is managing director of Stanworth Engineering Ltd, Burnley.

He said a service at Wheatley Lane Methodist Church followed by cremation had provisionally been fixed for Friday but nothing could yet be finalised.

Mr Stanworth attended Colne Grammar School before gaining a degree in chemistry from Hatfield Polytechnic.

His first job was at Prestige in Burnley and then he moved to a small metal plating company in London where was was chief chemist.

He was in his early 20s when he gave up his job and flew to Singapore, later moving on to Australia, where he worked as chemist in a gold mine.

It was his ambition to emigrate there but his application was turned down.

Mr Stanworth returned home briefly in 1983 after the death of his father but then, bitten by the travel bug once again, he moved to Japan. There he met his partner of several years, Taiko Itaba.

After a spell in Tokyo teaching English, the couple set off to travel extensively in South East Asia before going back to Australia in 1985.

Taiko was offered a job in London and then Hong Kong and the couple set up home there.

Mr Ted Stanworth added: "The family rather hoped that he was now ready to settle down.

"He was on his way back to Hong Kong to settle his affairs and collect some possessions when he died.''

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