A RELENTLESS search has led two men to the body of a friend who perished in the tsunami tragedy.

For seven days, former Folkestone schoolboys Craig Cardwell and Gareth Marks, went from makeshift mortuary to makeshift mortuary in a desperate hunt for travelling companion Jez Stephens who disappeared after the wave struck the Thai island of Koh Phi Phi.

And a week after the disaster, the trail reached its end when the pair finally found the 29-year-old lying in a temple in Krabi.

Jez was a pupil at the primary school at Lympne before winning a place at the Harvey Grammar School in Folkestone.

Jez had called his mother Linda Lilley in Shepherds Walk, Hythe, on Christmas Day buzzing with news about landing an impressive fish during an angling expedition that was served up during a beach barbecue.

Not being a fan of seafood, he said he had been pleasantly surprised when the Indian Ocean species actually tasted like chicken.

He was coming to the end of a three-week trip to Thailand, a country he had visited before. However, the seasoned traveller, who juggled a financial manager's position with an enthusiasm for backpacking, said he was missing home, that he wanted to return and that he loved his mother. That was the last they heard from him.

Jez's details were posted on websites in a frantic bid for news. His aunt Margaret Brookes-Tullett, her eyesight poor, used a magnifying glass to scour shots of the ruined resorts on the internet, just in case.

However, any hope of seeing the father of one-year-old Frankie again ended with confirmation that he had succumbed to the overwhelming force of the tidal wave.

Mrs Lilley said: "It was an enormous comfort knowing his friends were looking for him. I will always be in their debt. Our next priority is to bring him home.

"Jez was larger than life. He would do anything for anyone. He had so many friends. He was well educated, he had a good brain. And he wanted to see the world. He was such a character. Just a lovely lad. And he loved life."

Mrs Lilley, who has another son, 27-year-old Chris, a policeman, is now preparing for Jez's funeral. Although he lived in Norwich he will be buried at St Stephen's in Lympne, the village where he grew up.