When my Dad passed away suddenly in early May, here are a few of the messages we received about him:

“A lovely man, always friendly with a great sense of humour”

“Always bright and smiling”

‘A warm hearted man’

“Quite the character”

And my husband David said “He seemed to make time for the important things in his life, the things he loved the most; his family; his independence and his enjoyment of life. I don’t remember seeing him sad. He always seemed to have an ability to move on with little fuss, and now he has. The mark of a a good man and father.”

My Dad loved making things, and mending things, he was always busy with his hands. He loved watching Snooker on TV, or any big sporting event. He loved the uplifting music of Andre Reui, playing Solitaire on the iPad, and he loved having a mid morning medicinal drink. And an evening one too…

But most of all, he he loved his family. He was the glue who cajoled us all into countless family get togethers. The many happy beach holidays when we were young, and merry Christmas’s and New Years Eve parties at our family house at The Grove. If there was a bank holiday coming up he loved a Barbecue. He especially loved us to come to his Open Days at the Fareham and District Society of Model Engineers Club, and we always had a lot of fun riding around the tracks on the back of his train which he built by hand.

I’m so grateful for all the times he phoned me just for a chat about nothing in particular, even when the chat only lasted a couple of minutes because ‘Emmerdale' was coming on the TV and he wanted to watch it!  If I could speak to him one last time I would tell him to be very proud of his life, because just look at what he made - his ‘three lovely girls’, as he called us, his three wonderful Grandsons, so many model boats and model train tracks, countless Airfix models... and hopefully many more generations to come in the future! 

So thank you, Dad, for all the good times.  Thank your for your life, for all you gave us and for all you have done for us.

And now, as you used to say to us when we were three youngsters going to bed, it’s time for you to “sleep tight, and mind the bed bugs don’t bite”. You will never be forgotten and will live on forever in our hearts.