Breast Cancer truly is a silent killer, not only does it devastate families by taking loved ones from them, or leaving them with visible signs of invasive life saving surgury, it can also cast a genetic shadow of fear over all the women in a family that has a genetic history of the disease.

In 2004 at the age of just 56 my wife's mum was taken from us by a secondary bone cancer linked to her breast cancer. Since that day my wife had been living in fear of a timebomb, and the disease striking her.

However due to the fantastic research that today's Breast Cancer charities are carrying out a genetic screening test was available to find out if she carried the faulty BRCA1 gene, and more importantly if there was a chance that our twin girls had inherited it.

We were amazed to find out that the faulty gene had not been passed on to Sophie and therefore our girls were clear too.

Thanks to pioneering tests funded by fantastic charities like Breakthrough Breast Cancer we have moved out of that shadow of fear and can look forward to a future as a complete family.

It has inspired me to do as much as I can to raise as much money as possible for Breakthrough Breast Cancer to help them fund more research and more support for the many women and families that are devatstade by this horrible disease every year.