Tragic veteran Jay Thorn can now finally be laid to rest.
Loved ones of the former soldier are today preparing to say their last goodbyes, more than a month after he was killed in a car crash in Ukraine.
Groom-to-be Jay, from Wark near Hexham, had been working in the war torn country to help train soldiers when the collision happened, May 21. He was 36.
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After a long wait to get his body home, Jay's fiancee has now been able to set a date for his funeral.
Jay will be laid to rest at the West Road Crematorium in Newcastle on Friday.
The humanist service will begin at 1.15pm.
Jay, who had been a fusilier for eight years, travelled to Ukraine to do humanitarian work after the war started, in February 2022.
Louise said he then found work helping to train the Ukrainian soldiers desperately trying to defend their homeland from Russia's invasion.
The Foreign Office confirmed that Jay's death was not thought to be connected to the ongoing war.
Paying tribute to the man she had planned to marry, Louise said: "He was hard on the outside and soft on the inside. He had that exterior of being tough and he was tough but he a big softy inside.
"He just wanted to do some good."
More than £18,000 was donated to an online fundraising page Louise set up to help cover the costs of Jay's repatriaton.
Any money left over will be donated to charity.
