PENSIONER Frank Hughes would like to inform everyone that reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. This message is especially for the workmates who turned up to what they thought was his funeral.

Friends of the retired bus driver had been devastated to be told by his former employer that the sprightly 80-year-old had passed away earlier this month.

They conveyed the news to fellow drivers across Britain and abroad, and many made plans to travel to Darlington for their old pal's funeral.

Several colleagues made the journey, attending the morning service at the town's crematorium and mingling with mourners.

The loss had come as a big shock to old friends - but the sight of Mr Hughes, full of his usual energy and strolling along Darlington's High Row only an hour later, was a great deal bigger.

"One of the Stagecoach drivers came flying across to me, saying 'Frank, Frank, Frank, I can't believe it," said the D-Day veteran.

"He said 'I'm going to have to tell my wife straight away, she's been absolutely devastated'."

A former cleaner at the now-defunct Darlington Transport Company, where Mr Hughes worked before joining Stagecoach, then rushed over, flinging her arms around him as though she had witnessed a miracle.

Bemused by his friends' over-affectionate reactions to seeing him in the street, Mr Hughes asked what was going on - and was stunned when the misunderstanding began to unravel.

It had begun when friends spotted a death notice in The Northern Echo for a Mr Frank Hughes, aged 80, of Hilda Street, Darlington.

As the name, age and home town matched, a concerned driver contacted the Abbotts coach firm, of Leeming, North Yorkshire, from where Mr Hughes had retired only weeks earlier.

And there the confusion began. He was told that, as far as anyone at the company was aware, Hilda Street was indeed their old mate's address.

"I had seen the notice in the paper myself and eventually I started to twig what was happening," said Mr Hughes.

"I phoned Abbotts and the traffic manager answered. I told him it was Frank and that I was just phoning to say I was very much alive and kicking.

"He said 'Well, whose funeral have we all just been to then?'"

It even transpired that a driver who had promised Mr Hughes a stick of rock as a present from a holiday in Scotland took the gift to the service.

Mr Hughes said: "He said 'you won't be getting it I'm afraid - I gave it to one of the family at the funeral'."

Last night, red-faced staff at Abbotts were reluctant to discuss the gaffe.

"We're all too embarrassed to talk about it - poor Frank," said one worker.

Mr Hughes is now keen to put his "death" behind him and continue living happily close to the town centre.

"I get sick now of people stopping me on High Row and telling me I'm still alive," he said.

Yesterday, Tony Hughes, son of the late Frank Hughes, said there had been some surprise at the unexpected arrivals at the service.

He said: "It's a one in a million chance. My dad was in the Merchant Navy and it was a big turn-out, but there were some people outside who we didn't know.

"I didn't see the stick of rock, though. Maybe he gave it to one of the grand-kids - and they wouldn't have told us anyway."