April 7 1983...A day I will never forget...

Sat in front of a television with all my school mates I prepared to watch Episode 6 of the BBC's ground-breaking 'fly on the wall' series 'The Paras'. Having followed a company of new recruits through the first few weeks of their basic training, the series now returned with the soldiers to Wales...to Brecon...to my home town...and an encounter with Captain David Allen...my dad. Sat watching him teach these young men the intricacies of battle, in a room full of boys who were all the sons of soldiers, I was filled with pride...and a little smugness...that it was my dad on the TV

As I watched all aglow with the admiration of my peers my dad turned to a recruit who it seemed had made a complete pigs ear of a manoeuvre by ignoring bushes and tree stumps and instead diving for cover in a completely open field he spoke the words that caused everyone watching to turn and look at me with a mixture of pity and hubris...

"Not there..." barked my dad...

...Something cool, please say something cool and withering...

"...you LEMON!"

Lemon!? LEMON!? Who calls someone a lemon!?

Oh the shame and humiliation of a 15 year old boy!

It's probably the reason I choose a career in the Arts!

My dad came from the back streets of Birkenhead - where, he would tell me, the ducks fly backwards! He joined the Army when there were few choices open to him. Either the Army or the docks. His older brother Sid had been a paratrooper and had fought and died at Arnhem so my dad followed in his footsteps by joining his regiment - The Parachute Regiment.

He made the Army his career at a time when it was not always safe or fashionable to be a soldier. And a lefty, arty son can't have always have helped. But we do not choose the times into which we are born and we can do far worse than try to make the most of the time we are given. And my dad tried to make the most of his time. And sometimes he soared and sometimes he failed. But if he failed it was never for want of doing what he believed was the right thing.

In retirement, after a 30 year career in the Army, he gave his time volunteering for SSAFA out of his inherent sense of doing what was right and because he wanted to help the men, women and families that make up our Armed Services.

Two years ago he passed away after a hard but thankfully brief battle with cancer. I know he was proud of me and the small achievements I have made in my life but I wanted to do one thing that I know would really mean something special to him, which is why I am running the London Marathon for SSAFA. The organisation that has been supporting the families of the Armed Services for over 100 years...It might also vanquish his disappointment at me never being good enough to play for Liverpool!

My dad, like millions of fathers around the world, was a hero to his son. A flawed, wonderful, infuriating, omnipotent, foolish, omniscient, funny, frustrating, disappointing, disappointed, fantastic, loving, heroic genius of a man whose legacy and kind-heartedness I hope will live on through my children's children.

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