A MEMORIAL service is to be held on the Blackdown Hills next week for retired newspaper editor and public relations executive Gareth Weekes, who drowned while on holiday in the Caribbean.

Mr Weekes, aged 77, lived in Clayhidon, where his wife Alison chairs the parish council.

He died in a snorkelling accident off St Vincent and the Grenadines in March.

The service in his memory will take place in St Andrew’s Church, Clayhidon, on Saturday, April 22, with attendees retiring afterwards to the village hall.

Donations in memory of Mr Weekes will go to Parkinson’s UK, a research and support charity for those suffering the condition.

Mr Weekes retired last autumn after a journalism career in which he was editor of the Salisbury Journal and the Bournemouth Daily Echo before founding public relations firm Deep South Media Ltd in 1998.

He had also been editor of one of the Wellington Weekly’s sister newspapers, the Tavistock Times.

Mrs Weekes, who was also a journalist, married Mr Weekes in 2007 after having known each other for most of their lives and sharing their careers.

Both had had partners who pre-deceased them.

Mr Weekes leaves three daughters Veryan, Bronwen, and Jenna, and two step-daughters Poz and Maddie, and 11 grandchildren, and is survived by his sisters Carolyn Arthurs and Jane Revill.