HUNDREDS of emotional friends and relatives are expected to turn out for the funeral of much-loved March teenager Craig Bird.

The popular 18-year-old Metalcraft apprentice will be cremated on Tuesday (August 24) after a moving service at St John’s Church in March.

Nearly 1,000 mourners who have joined the RIP Craig James Bird Facebook page have been invited to pay their respects “dressed as Craig would want to see you - no formal dress necessary”.

All friends who knew Craig, of Norwood Road, March, are welcome to both the church service at 10.30am and the cremation in Knights End Road at 11.15am to say a final goodbye.

Memorial pages pay tribute to Craig as “an amazing and greatly loved boy who got taken away too soon”.

The former Cromwell Community College student had a bright future ahead of him as one of the rising young stars at Chatteris firm Metalcraft.

But a promising life was cut tragically short when the Peugeot 106 he was driving was in collision with a Toyota Hilux in Doddington Road, Chatteris.

Just hours later hundreds of tributes flooded in from people who knew Craig and have barely stopped since.

A memorial website set up by Craig’s friends and family was visited by 679 people in less than two days whereas dozens of flowers bearing heartfelt messages were left by the scene of the crash, close to the junction of Badney Road.

One handwritten tribute from Becky Masterson reads: “This is wrong that you have been taken from us all this soon. We will miss you and never forget you.”

Another says: “I can’t believe this has happened, I can’t come to terms with it either. I miss you so much.”

Writing on Craig’s Gonetosoon.org page, Georgina Chapman said he was a “lovely, charming young man”.

She added: “You will be missed terribly and nobody will ever forget you. I will never forget that smile you wore everywhere you went.”