Association, will not be marching in the parade to the Cenotaph on November 11 this year, as he has done for the many years he has lived in Bermuda.

Instead, Arthur and his wife, Barbara, will be on an extended cruise to the Mediterranean. On the way, he will retrace some of the Atlantic routes he knew during his years in the Second World War with escort corvettes.

Instead of the ceremony at our Cenotaph, Arthur hopes to organise and lead one on board his cruise ship.

The cruise itinerary takes him to Barcelona, Spain on November 11. As he wants the service to take place while the ship is at sea, he hopes to arrange it for the previous evening.

If the captain approves his request, Arthur also wants to extend an invitation to the other passengers. At the end of the service, Arthur will cast poppies onto the open water in memory of the many seamen of the Royal and Merchant Navies who lost their lives defending vital convoys for Malta and beyond.

Arthur Hughes was born in Liverpool, England and joined the Royal Navy in 1942. Earlier, he had his first direct wartime experience when, during the Liverpool blitz, his home was hit by a bomb which, miraculously, failed to explode. He was assigned to escort corvette duty, and served on these noble little ships for the remainder of his war service.

In 1943 he was sent to Bermuda at a time when the Island was taking delivery of the destroyers from the United States. He joined the crew of HMS Willowherb (corvette K283) escorting convoys from between Liverpool and Gibraltar.

Subsequently, the Willowherb was based at Freetown as part of the Freetown Escort Forces, escorting convoys up and down the West African coast from Lagos, Nigeria to Gibraltar. Arthur is a member of the Freetown Escort Forces Association.