The crew of HMS Monmouth are currently at sea in the Gulf, away from their friends and family this Christmas.

The Monmouthshire Beacon is making an appeal for readers to send Christmas greetings to the sailors to give them a morale boost at this festive time of year.

Working away from home for long stretches is bad enough but being away from home over Christmas is particularly difficult.

All it takes to cheer the lads (and the four lasses) up is a short note of encouragement, a joke, anything which shows we are thinking of them.

Your emails and messages will be forwarded to the ship in time for Christmas and the Beacon will print the responses as soon as they come in.

Send your morale boosting messages to [email protected]">[email protected] or drop them into the Beacon office: 56, Monnow Street, Monmouth.