A MEMORIAL service will be held next week for a retired journalist who died in South America while on a cruise.

Bob Horn, 69, of Grindon, Sunderland, spent most of his career on the city’s evening paper, The Sunderland Echo, working for many years as its district reporter in Houghton-le-Spring.

Mr Horn is believed to have fallen overboard from a cruise ship after it called at Montevideo, in Uruguay, before returning to the UK.

The memorial service will be held at St Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland at 3pm on Saturday, February 22.

Those attending the church are invited to the Navy Club, in Roker, afterwards.

Mr Horn’s nephew, Robert, said he and his family are still waiting for answers about his death.

Mr Horn was travelling with his brother David, his closest relative, when he died.