Obviously it's impossible for me to sum dad up on one page or email or any quantifiable measure. Memories of dad include: Rescuing me from a number of situations - hornets’ nest in abandoned trains, driving my motorbike down a hole behind the back of our house, picking me up out of the waves on Jumeirah beach when i got flipped over, chasing off a dog that was chasing me in Jebel Ali. Working abroad in Saudi Arabia. Picking us up in his Chevy Corsica (which he chose because the stereo in it had a graphic equaliser) or Chrysler New Yorker. He sometimes took me to work with him. Spending a day at his office in Riyadh and Jeddah - bored after about 5 minutes with him trying to keep me busy with loads of brews and an old apple computer with a game on it. Or when he was back he drove me down to Birmingham or hull for a day out. I remember the old house in Wales (Haffoty Llechwedd) and I went in dad’s car and we got there before anyone else and he made me a bowl of plain pasta cos that's all he could find or manage to cook. Beach weekends in Dubai when dad could do what he does well and get wrecked with his mates. This also included the Hash House Harriers’ weekends in Saudi when we'd drive out to a desert, watch someone get some weird sludge poured over them, do a massive run or walk through the desert, then go off to someone’s house and get pissed. Dad also had a short fuse and I remember him telling me that his Kasparov chess machine kept 'cheating' and preventing him from winning, so he took it to the kitchen and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. You always knew when dad was doing something DIY or trying to repair something cos there would be a chorus of swearing and banging going on. Dad would always make sure we went somewhere decent on holiday: trips to Kenya/Malaysia/Thailand and even when we were short of cash one year he managed to get us to Calella in Spain via a bus from Wigan. Music was a big thing for dad and he'd always have his stereo on in his car playing his Stevie Wonder CDs or listening to Classic FM when he was back in England in his various hire cars. He was always playing practical jokes, and it didn’t matter who they were aimed at. I remember him playing a Halloween scream soundtrack at the climactic part of Silence of the Lambs and making us all have a mild heart attack. Obviously there are many more memories, I don’t actually remember the monkey being sick when dad farted at it, but I wish I could: that is textbook dad. Looking back and through the huge archive of photographs at home, 99% of them are photos of dad and his family, whether it's us on our extravagant holidays or just us messing about at home. Dad was without doubt a family man more than anything else. Yes he did like to drink and do daft stuff and have a laugh and a joke, but we were always number 1 priority and he absolutely devoted his life to us all. He didn't spend all those years living on his own in Saudi Arabia (the most boring country on the planet for someone like dad) for himself, it was all for us and to make us have a life that was as easy and comfortable as possible. Even in his last few weeks he would never ever give us any news or indication to cause us alarm. He had all of us as his number 1 priority until the very end. Dad was always modest about what he had done and how he felt he achieved below what he could have done, but none of us think that for a second. He has set the standard incredibly high for all of us to follow. I couldn’t have wished for a better dad. He may have passed away but he will always be our dad.