A ROSYTH veteran who was honoured by the Russian and Korean governments for his wartime efforts has died at the age of 95.

Alexander Gillan, of Ramsey Place, passed away on January 22 and his funeral service took place in Dunfermline on Monday.

Mr Gillan, who was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow, first joined the Royal Navy in 1942 where he spent five weeks training at HMS Drake in Plymouth. He was then sent to Liverpool and on to Algiers.

After a stint in Malta, he was despatched to Russia with the Artic Convoys and was present when the famous German battleship, Scharnhorst, was sunk at the battle of North Cape on Boxing Day 1943.

After the Second World War, Mr Gillan also served in Korea for three years.

As reported by the Press in June 2018, Mr Gillan was awarded one of the highest honours from the Russian Government, the Ushakov medal, for his efforts in braving freezing conditions in the Arctic Convoys.

Sir Winston Churchill deemed the Artic Convoys, which saw sailors deliver vital supplies between the UK and the Soviet Union, as the "worst journey in the world" .

He was also awarded an Ambassador for Peace medal for Korea for his "dedication and sacrifice" in the Korean War and also received a medal and commemorative watch from the Consul General of the Russian Federation in 2015 during a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

Mr Gillan married wife Isabella, who died in 2012, in 1956. They suffered the heartbreak of losing their first daughter a week after she was born in 1958 and went on to have another daughter, Angela, in 1960.

Angela was proud of all her dad's achievements.

"I am so proud," she said. "Two of the representatives of the Russian Consulate are coming through for his funeral next Monday and two people from the Royal Navy Association are going to come and stand outside.

"He worked in the dockyard and, at one time, he was social convener in the dockyard club and used to organise coach trips to the racing. Even in his eighties, he had a job in the ex-servicemen's club on the door.

"He was active all his life right up until he had a stroke three-and-a-half years ago."