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A church has launched a social media campaign to find mourners for the funeral of an 85-year-old former Welsh Guardsman after struggling to track down any family or friends.

The reverend who will preside over the service for Harold Morgan made an appeal on Facebook following fears nobody would turn up to the pensioner’s send-off.

Funeral directors had been unable to trace any next of kin or friends of Mr Morgan, who had lived at a Barry care home for the past 14 years, ahead of the planned service at St Tathan Church in St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan on Thursday.

Rev Rachel Simpson, who will be conducting the service, said it would be “horrible” if no-one was there to witness his funeral.

The church said on its Facebook site: “On Thursday (November 13), we have the funeral for the late Harold Morgan at 12 noon. He lived in Owain Court before moving to a care home in Barry approximately 14 years ago and requested that his funeral be at our church.

“Unfortunately there’s been some difficulty tracing next of kin or knowing who his friends were, or if they’re still in St Athan. If you did know Harold or have any more information, please get in touch or come along to his funeral on Thursday. Thank you.”

Following the appeal some friends of Mr Morgan have begun to come forward.

It has emerged Mr Morgan authored books on Welsh railways and was the founding member of the Welsh Railways Research Circle.

Rev Simpson said: “Our appeal has had some success already with members of the circle contacting us to say they will be attending. It would be nice to think Mr Morgan will have a well-attended service.

“Unfortunately we don’t know much about Mr Morgan other than he lived in this area for a number of years. His will stipulated he be buried at St Tathan but many of those who knew him at the home have now passed on.”

Rodney Hall, secretary of the Welsh Railways Research Circle which was co-founded by Mr Morgan, confirmed a number of the group’s members would be at the funeral.

He said: “A couple of our members continued to visit Mr Morgan when he went into the home.

“But it appears they did not get the message he had passed away. I plan to go to the funeral as do a number of other circle members who remember him.

“Harold Morgan was born in Oxford, lived in Carmarthenshire for a while before moving to the Vale of Glamorgan and worked as a bookkeeper and previously as a signalman.”

Tudor Watkins, of Abercrave, originally founded the Welsh Railway Research Circle in October 1978 with Mr Morgan.

He said Mr Morgan had an encyclopaedic knowledge of railways in Wales and was always happy to pass his knowledge on to others.

Following Mr Morgan’s funeral in St Athan on Thursday he is to have a green interment at a burial field in Abermule, Montgomeryshire – at a site overlooking the Cambrian Railway.

Mr Watkins said: “I could not help but have a smile when Harold told me that was where he planned to have his burial about two years ago.”

Mr Morgan, author of South Wales Branch Lines, published by Ian Allen in 1984, served in the Welsh Guards during his national service and was posted to Egypt where he once represented his regiment in rugby on a pitch made of sand.

Mr Watkins added: “The news of his death is slowly filtering out and many from the circle will be at his funeral and I hope some will also go to the burial on Friday.”

Mr Morgan is now to be remembered at the circle’s next meeting in the John Malkovich Suite at the Big Sleep Hotel in Bute Terrace, Cardiff, this weekend.

Social media campaigns have been spectacularly successful in helping those with few next of kin or surviving friends.

Last month a D-Day veteran, Denis Price, of Worcester, who served with the RAF and who died with no surviving family, was given a send-off by more than 100 strangers who turned up to his funeral following a social media campaign and the RAF even arranged a Hercules fly-past from RAF Brize Norton.

And in April this year John Anderson Campbell, who is believed to have won the Military Cross for his bravery during the British Army’s campaign in Burma, died aged 92 in a care home with no known friends or family.

However after an appeal was put out online hundreds of mourners arrived at his funeral in Whitley Bay Crematorium.