Private funeral for soldier

Joey Etchells

CORPORAL Joey Etchells, who was killed on duty in Afghanistan, is to make his final journey home to Mossley as family and friends prepare to say goodbye.

An inquest into the death of the 22-year-old father-of-one was opened and adjourned by Tameside coroner John Pollard yesterday.

Cpl Etchells, who joined the Army aged 16, was killed in a bomb blast on Sunday, July 19, while on foot patrol near Sangin, northern Helmand province.

Arrangements are still being finalised but it is thought that the funeral will take place at St George’s Church in Stamford Street, Mossley, on Tuesday afternoon.

The ceremony will be a private, family affair with Cpl Etchells’s colleagues carrying his coffin into the church draped in a Union Jack.

The Mayor of Oldham, Councillor Jim McArdle, will join mourners at the funeral service.

Tributes to the soldier, who served in the 2nd Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, are still pouring in to his Facebook page.

Fiancee Julie Davies’s most recent post says: “I think about you every minute of every day and still can’t believe you have gone. It doesn’t seem real. You will always be my man and I will love you forever. I want to hold you so much and love you more than anything.”

Cp Etchells, who was on his third tour of Afghanistan, was the 186th serviceman to be killed in the country and the 17th to die in July.