THE old soldier summed it up as he left the cemetery: "He might have had no money in his pocket but he didn't go a pauper."

Private Robert Bell was awarded the Military Medal by George VI - one of the highest honours - for a single-handed act of bravery while fighting Germans in Vincigliata Castle, Florence, Italy, on August 27, 1944.

The Bren gunner and sniper was part of a patrol that came under heavy fire from the castle.

Pte Bell left his cover and, according to his citation, showed "the most magnificent and complete disregard of his personal safety" and ran towards the castle and fired into the windows and slits in the wall.

He silenced at least one of the Germans' automatic weapons and then gave covering fire as the patrol withdrew.

But the former Scots Guard died penniless at the age of 86 in the Beamish Residential Home, West Pelton, near Chester-le-Street, County Durham.

With no relatives, it looked as if his end would be marked by what officials call a "social funeral" in which his ashes would have been scattered in a garden of remembrance.

Others thought a hero deserved better, and yesterday Pte Bell was laid to rest with full military honours after a service at Holy Trinity Church, Pelton, attended by more than 250 people.

His medal was going to be sold, but it will stay on display at the home, thanks to donations from the public and Cathedral Funeral Services in Durham City.

Ex-service organisations were out in force, determined to see that a comrade in arms had a decent send off.

The standards included various Royal British Legion branches and the Durham Light Infantry Association branches from Consett and Chester-le-Street.

Army cadets and members of Pte Bell's former regiment were there too.

Pipe Major David Bark, of 102 Battalion Reme, played the traditional lament Flowers of the Forest, and Garb of Auld Gaul, the regiment's slow march.

At the cemetery, in Ropery Lane, Chester-le-Street, the Last Post was sounded by buglers George Atkinson and Tom McKenna, instructors with the Borneo band of the Durham Army Cadet Force.

The Reverend John Lintern described Pte Bell, who was well-known in Pelton and the surrounding villages where he lived all his life, as a modest man.

He said: "Bobby was someone who was proud to have been a soldier, but he was someone, too, who never boasted or gloried in his award.

"He was modest in his achievement. Most people learned about his Military Medal from other people.

"He said 'When I die you can put me in a cardboard box and put me over the church wall'. I wonder if he was here today what he would say about this service."

Major Stewart Henderson, of the Scots Guards, said afterwards: "It was good to see so many ex-soldiers there showing their appreciation of a proud man's life.