I first met David Walls 26 years ago roughly 5 seconds after I was born.  I don’t have a very vivid memory of it, but I’m almost certain he made a joke.

Obviously, I think most people would agree that 26 is too young to lose your father.  I would agree with you in principal, but I suppose one of the great mysteries of life is when your time will be.  I remember when I was 5 years old and I came to realise that my parents would one day day. I was lying in bed and just had this image in my mind of my parents’ gravestones.  I remember running downstairs and hugging Dads legs. I’ve never known anybody to die before, and I’ve never been to a funeral, but I feel that it was my father’s never ending stream of advice that prepared me for a situation like this.  

My father was an important source of wisdom for me. I remember specifically when I was a teenager, I would spend hours on the phone to him asking him for advice. I don't think he realised it, but the most important thing he ever said to me was to feel how you feel.

Over the years those words stuck with me and came to develop into the guiding principles that allowed me to love and accept myself, to stop trying to be somebody and to just be myself, to stop expecting other people to be a certain way, and accept them for who they were.

It was my father that gave me the tools to be a happy person, and the person I am today. And the best thing he did was to teach me to appreciate the present by doing what it was I wanted.  He would always emphasise to me not to live my life feeling beholden to others, but to look inside yourself and feel out truly what it is you want to do, to do what you think is right in that situation, no matter how much that might fly in the face of the pressure you may feel other people have put on you.  

He taught me to let go of things as if they were water off a duck’s back.  

When I was unsure of what to do next, he would always remind me to do what felt right because life was too short, and he couldn't have been more right.

The last piece of advice I asked my Dad was about a month ago.  There was a issue with some people I knew in Bristol and I acted without consulting anybody.  I gave him a call the same evening to just run it past him. He told me he felt I had done exactly the right thing in that situation, and told me in a Darth Vader accent that I had learned from him well.  Having that final advice giving experience with him really made me feel as if he had imparted all the lessons he could have onto me. I would have very much liked to have shared with him the experience of being a father, and to have shown him a grandchild, because I know he would have made an excellent grandfather. And no doubt taught my likely too young children how to swear, as was certainly my experience with him.

I feel now, that he no longer lives 200 miles away, but is with me all the time. I can turn to him whenever I want, and I know exactly what he will say. And by the way, he thinks you're all over dressed. He also admits he can't do a very good Obi Wan Kenobi impression. I'm not entirely sure what he means, but I'm sure that probably means something to someone.

I’m going to read a poem by Dylan Thomas, which is probably a cliched poem to read at your Dad’s funeral, but I’m going to read it anyway because it came to me in a dream the night I was told he had died, and I find it both life affirming and accepting the inevitable.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

So it's true that you’ll never know when you’re time will be to go, but I could ask for no greater gift knowing that I told him I loved him when I felt it, and I told him I was grateful he was my father when I felt it.  My relationship with him was stronger in recent years than it had been in my entire life, and for that, I have no regrets. And for those of you who don’t feel that, I think it's important to remember that he knew you loved him, and that he loved you, and I hope you can speak to him now as I can

I love my father immensely, and now that he's gone, I'll never forget to live for the present and not care about tomorrow, because you never know when you're time will come to depart this world.

Goodbye my Father.