In 2018 a friend of mine, Suraen Senanayake, whom I had known for many years, died. Suraen had AT, a very rare and complex genetic disorder, and was only 19 (the life expectancy of someone with the disease is 26). 

We used to go shopping at weekends, in Wimbledon or Kingston, and to the cinema. My love of Marvel superhero films is because of him, my ambition to one day be a scriptwriter for WWE wrestling, even though I have absolutely no qualifications for the job, is because of him.

In the summer of 2019, he would have been 21 so I am going to swim 21km to honour his life, to raise money for the AT Society, and to raise awareness of the disease. 

To find out more about the AT Society visit https://www.atsociety.org.uk