Widow rides pillion on way to speedway photographer's funeral
A much-loved speedway photographer was given a fitting farewell as family and friends saw him arrive for his funeral in a motorcycle hearse.
Ronald ‘Ron’ Charles Hinsley, who used to work for the Express & Star, died on October 16 aged 85 and his special sidecar hearse was at the head of other vehicles in his funeral cortege.
Leading them was his wife Denise, who travelled on the back of the motorcycle taking the hearse to St Nicholas’ Church in Codsall from their home in Station Road.
Crowds of people waited outside the church as Ron and Denise made their last journey together.
Hymns including I Watch The Sunrise and Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace were sang from a packed church.
The Lord’s Prayer was read out along with a poem, He Is Gone, as onlookers reflected on Ron’s life.
Ron, who was born at Oak Street in Wolverhampton, was deployed for national service in Egypt and later became interested in grass track photography.
Denise, 63, looked after him in his final years as he developed Parkinson’s which stopped him from taking photographs.
Denise said Ron was proud of his photography and loved it.
She said: “He was very proud of it.
“He lived for grass trackway photography. As soon as we came out he would say where are we going the following week.
"It was a family community and we did it all over the country. He loved it.
“He was a lovely, lovely husband and I’m going to miss him very much.”
The 63-year-old said she wanted to make a ‘fitting tribute’ to her husband by riding beside him on the car.
Denise said: “They said when I went to the funeral directors someone could go on the side.
"As he was the photographer for speedway that was a fitting tribute for him that’s why we got the sidecar hearse.
“Everybody loved him. I can’t thank the neighbours, the family and all my friends for the support. He was a lovely lovely man. It’s been a very hard day. My heart is in a million pieces. He died on Tuesday and I never left him from the Saturday. He was not just my husband he was my everything.
“He was my world and my world has been broken up. It’s a very sad day but I had a good send-off for him.”
His coffin was carried out to the song Simply The Best by Tina Turner and a burial followed in the churchyard.
