A 69-YEAR-OLD woman took some of her late husband's ashes from an urn at their home hours before her body was found in the canal, an inquest was told.

The hearing was told that Marion Riding had suffered from depression for a number of years and had been hard hit by the death of her husband in December.

And daughter Jacqueline Crane said she thought her mum had taken the ashes with her so they could be together again.

"She left some for my brother and I to scatter in Corporation Park as we had arranged to do," said Mrs Crane, who discovered her mum had booked a taxi to take her to the locks in Bolton Road, Blackburn, where her body was found in March.

Mrs Crane said her mum had suffered from depression for 20 years and this had worsened when her father was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's..

"For the two weeks before she died she was feeling nauseous all the time," said Mrs Crane.

"She would say it made her feel like she didn't want to go on living. I never thought she would take her own life."

Mrs Riding, of Oozehead Lane, Blackburn, was spotted floating in the Leeds and Liverpool Canal by two boys walking back from Ewood Park.

The medical cause of death was given as drowning but deputy coroner Carolyn Singleton said it would remain something of a mystery.

She recorded an open verdict.