A TRADITIONAL song from the Philippines will be sung at a dockside carol service next weekend.

The Langbaurgh Singers will perform Pasko Na Sinta Ko, a song about being away from home, in the Filipino Tagalog dialect.

The Right Reverend Robert Ladd, Bishop of Whitby, will also take part in the open-air service being organised by the South Tees Mission to Seafarers.

He will join sailors and port workers alongside Cleveland Police Band and the Langbaugh Singers, who will provide the music, on Cargo Fleet Wharf, South Bank, at 7pm, on Sunday, December 8.

Colin Worswick, the Mission's chaplain, who expects more than 300 people at the inter-faith service, said anyone was welcome to join in.

His wife, Beryl, and other volunteers will wear Victorian-style dresses and distribute roast chestnuts, mulled wine and mince pies.

Dock companies are supporting the event by providing a crane to move containers to make a windbreak, as well as a donating a Christmas tree and providing a lorry to transport it to the site.

The South Tees Mission to Seafarers works in partnership with the Roman Catholic society, the Apostleship of the Sea.

Church congregations are putting together shoeboxes filled with gifts for distribution to seafarers and last year, more than 300 were made.

Mr Worswick said: "We are asking more churches for help this year, to give people the chance to share in our support of seafarers at Christmas, and to show them that seafarers are our neighbours; they are not strangers but part of the community."

The service will be held next to the cable-laying vessel MV Skandi Neptune. Admission to the service is by free tickets, available from Mr Worswick, on (01642) 460244.