AN award-winning teacher enjoyed a VIP visit to one of the county's airbases last week.

Steven Bowditch spent a day at RAF Leeming, where he was treated to a flight in a tutor aircraft.

The visit was part of his reward for winning the Royal Air Force Award for headteacher of the year in a secondary school in the North East and Cumbria.

Mr Bowditch, 60, recently retired as head of the James Rennie School, in Carlisle.

In putting him forward for the award, staff at the specialist communication and interaction college named Mr Bowditch as "a man of integrity and vision who has secured the future of his school, almost tripling its numbers through a difficult period which has seen other special schools closed down".