A veterans’ trust has appealed for mourners to attend the funeral of a D-Day veteran who once revealed on television his years of loneliness after losing his wife.

       Cyril Banks, who swept mines off Gold Beach while under attack during the D-Day landings in 1944, died on May 6 and spent his last three years in a care home in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.

       The Southampton Veterans’ Trust is calling for members of the public to attend his funeral to give him “the send-off he deserves”.

       Mr Banks first appeared on TV in 2016 after being scammed out of ￡9,000 of savings. When a GoFundMe page raised ￡18,000 for him, he gave half of it away to charity.

       He then appeared on Good Morning Britain in Dec 2019 during a campaign to encourage volunteers to spend time with lonely people.

       Vera, his wife of three decades, died in 2007, leaving Mr Banks on his own. He said on the programme that after her death, he “started a different life”, although he found companionship with the Not Forgotten Association.

       After he spent five Christmases alone, a family in Bishop’s Stortford invited him to spend Christmas 2018 and 2019 with them.

       Since the appeal for mourners to attend his funeral was first made, family members have come forward to say they will be there. Mr Banks has step-children in the UK.

       Aged just 19, Mr Banks swept mines off Gold Beach while being attacked by German aircraft and coastal guns.

       He was on board HMS Ready which led the mine-clearing flotilla on June 6 1944, helping 25,000 British soldiers to land in Normandy.

       Mr Banks, who joined the Navy aged 18, later recalled his harrowing D-Day experience: “We saw bodies floating in the water, including an American paratrooper who became caught in the cords of his twisted chute when he down in the water.

       “We found him drowned, but later gave him a decent burial at sea. The horrendous things that were happening will live in my mind forever.”

       During the Second World War, he was also part of the Arctic convoys in the North Sea patrolling for U-boats and took on the Japanese in landing ships in the Far East.

       He repatriated Australian prisoners of war at the end of the conflict before returning to Britain.

       Colin Gaylor, the chairman of the Southampton Veterans Trust, said: “I have been asked to see if anyone is available as Cyril has no family to attend. We need help to give this hero the send-off he deserves.”

       He added: “I’ve had people from as far away as Newcastle saying they will attend. If we can get 100 people there we would be ecstatic but the man deserves more than that. We owe his generation so much.”

       His funeral will be held at Parndon Wood Crematorium, in Harlow, Essex, on May 30.