A VETERAN decorated for his Second World War service says his pride is tinged with sadness for the comrades no longer alive to receive the same recognition.

Stanley Robinson, of Crook, County Durham, has been awarded the Russian Ushakov Medal and last year received the Arctic Star UK campaign medal.

The 95-year-old said: “Both were presented to me by the postman.

“We’ve waited so long for recognition, it is just sad that so many people cannot receive this because they are no longer with us.

“It should have come sooner.

“Many men I served with, friends, should have had them so its acknowledgement not just for me but for them.”

Both medals recognise sailors on the Arctic or Russian convoys between 1941 and 1945 - described by Sir Winston Churchill as the worst journey in the world - which delivered essential supplies to the Soviet Union.

Mr Robinson was called up on August 29, 1940, aged 21, after being exempt from service for six months because he worked as a labourer at Roddymoor pit, near Crook.

He was seasick throughout his first two months at sea, on minesweeping operations on HMS Briand, and later served on HMS Middleton which he called home for four years.

It was on this ship he spent two years with the Russian convoy mission and worked his way up from captain of heads, responsible for keeping the quarterdeck ship-shape, to acting lead seaman.

The campaign cost the lives of thousands of sailors and merchant seamen and more than 100 civilian and military ships were lost.

Beyond the threat of the enemy, men endured terrible weather, the dark polar winter and 24-hour daylight in summer and sailors perished in minutes if they fell into the bitterly cold water.

Mr Robinson recalls: “You didn’t really feel anything about it, just went on and did your job.

“The seas were so rough.

"When the ship started to hull it was really terrific, you just had to grab onto something.

“I had the misfortune of standing alongside a lad who was washed overboard.”

After the war Mr Robinson returned to County Durham.

He married his wife Nora, with whom he shared 64 happy years of marriage until her death five years ago, and settled in Tow Law.

He spent most of his working life at the George Blair foundry, at Stanhope.

He is a father of two and has four grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

Daughter Margaret Nichol, who Mr Robinson lives with, in Crook, said: “We are very proud of dad.

“I didn’t realise what he had gone through and just how lucky he was to be alive.”