A YORK woman is mourning the demise of Concorde - remembering her flight on the famous plane with help from the Evening Press.

Rita Willis, 45, of The Crescent, Heslington, enjoyed a whirlwind trip to New York on Concorde after winning a competition she entered in the Evening Press in 1997.

Rita said her trip made her amazingly fond of the iconic machine, and she was very sad to see it make its last flight.

"I have had a real lump in the back of my throat, tears in my eyes," she said.

Rita could not believe her luck when she beat 20 million phone callers to win two tickets at the knockdown price of £10 each.

The tickets should have cost £10,800, but Rita and her husband, Stuart, enjoyed their trip of a lifetime for just a snip.

"People were amazed, asking how I did it, and I told them it was from the story in the Evening Press," she said.

"The flight itself only took three hours, and they treated us amazingly, we were fed champagne and caviar, it really was the high-life. It was a dream come true."

Updated: 09:34 Saturday, October 25, 2003