THE Red Ensign and the Union Flag were flown at the funeral of Albert Bond, a former mariner who served on the Russian convoys during the Second World War, who has died at the age of 84.
Born in Newport in 1919, Mr Bond sailed the world, having gone to sea at 14. Serving on a blockade runner during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 his ship narrowly avoided being bombed in Barcelona docks.
After the war he served on tugboats, including one which accompanied the Reino del Pacifico on her final voyage underneath Newport Transporter Bridge in the 1950s.
The chairman of the Newport branch of the Merchant Navy Association, Bert Bale, said "Albert is the last of a kind."
The hearse bearing Mr Bond's coffin crossed the Transporter Bridge to the service at the Missions to Seamen which preceded burial at St Woolos cemetery.
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