A BUSINESS entrepreneur who could be said to have ‘cut the mustard’ when it came to success on both sides of the Atlantic, has died.

Leslie Richards, 76, who was born at an aunt’s house in Wigan, spent much of his early life in Chequerbent, Westhoughton and Hunger Hill, Bolton, before moving to Canada in 1980.

He is a former pupil at Chequerbent Church of England Primary School and Westhoughton Senior Boys (now Westhoughton High School).

After leaving school, he moved into haulage industry by buying a truck and setting himself up as Leslie Richards Haulage, which he used to transport mushrooms from a second business Leslie Richards Mushrooms, which he grew on farmland at Hunger Hill.

In his leisure time Leslie played goalkeeper for a Westhoughton pub team called the Red Lion Dynamos, pictured above, centre.

He sold the truck and mushroom business and in 1974 and established Winlie Commercials, to repair and manufacture shipping containers based in Bootle.

In 1980 he took his entrepreneurial skills to Canada and to Nova Scotia where he established another container business.

He retired to the island of Bermuda in 1994, but became homesick for England and moved back to the Lake District in 2006 to follow up on his second passion which was to own a racehorse.

His daughter Anne Marie Lake said: “He had a lifelong passion to own a racehorse and in the event he had two, who proved a success on the track after returning home.”

“Dad had success with whatever he did in his life and whatever he turned his hand to he was good at it.”

A private funeral service was held at Wetheral Parish Church, Cumbria.