A FORMER royal marine who served as a bodyguard to Winston Churchill has died aged 92.

Neville Bullock from Garswood died on Monday after a period of ill health. It follows the death of his wife Margaret four months ago.

He was just 19 when he was asked to accompany the former prime minister after the Second World War in a secret mission which turned out to be the Potsdam Conference in occupied Germany.

The famous meeting is where Churchill, Russian leader Joseph Stalin and the American President Harry S. Truman divided up post-war Europe and Asia and decided on punishments following their victory.

Neville received the Somervell Award in 2010 for his essay Eyewitness to Potsdam which came to the attention of the Churchill Centre and Cabinet War Rooms and also took part in several programmes on Churchill around his 50th anniversary.

Speaking in 2015, he said: “I was there when he came out of that meeting at Potsdam. I went up to him as I was guarding and he turned and snarled at me, ‘Do you have to follow me everywhere?’ I explained I did.

“He said, ‘You are a bloody nuisance’, then he looked at me and sighed and said, ‘Come on, I’ve been a bloody nuisance for years.’ “As he walked away back to his villa he turned and said ‘There is a cold wind coming, and we shall need to keep warm’.

“I got three pounds in an envelope the next day and I knew it had come from the Old Man, as we called him.”

The dad-of-two, who had also served as a Royal Marine, was a St Helens councillor for Billinge and Seneley Green from 1996 to 2004 and a Merseyside firefighter.

His friend Jim Stevenson said: “He was a good bloke and did a lot in his life including being a firefighter as well as his history at the council and as a bodyguard to Churchill.

“He was an unassuming man who did a lot for so many and counts former mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani as a personal friend.

“He will be greatly missed.”

He also counted former mayor of New York Rudy Guiliani as a friend after organising a visit to the Big Apple shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack to offer support to the fire service.

St Helens Council has confirmed that on the day of Neville’s funeral the town hall flag will fly at half-mast.