Singing kept my dad from dying sooner

Don’t Bring Me Flowers’ less than two weeks ago at a pub with his daughter Alicia.

Kai said: “He really was the life and soul of the party and I believe he didn’t want to become a shell of himself.

“He was exactly the same Garry for everyone right until the end.

“I was having a laugh with him about the Huddersfield Town match on Wednesday.”

Kai also believes that Town’s promotion to the Premier League was the ultimate gift in the last full year of his dad’s life.

He said: “He was a lifetime Town fan and he had been taking me since I was a kid. It was our way of bonding.

“Last year he went to Wembley. He always said to me that he never thought he would see Town in the Premier League.

“It’s been an amazing year for him. It feels like that was how it should have ended for him.”

Garry leaves behind his wife Eve, children Kai and Alicia, brother Andrew, his parents Maureen and Barry and his step-children Pauline, Gemma, KJ, Michelle and Sammi.

Pulmonary fibrosis, which causes scarring of the lungs leading to breathing difficulties, mostly occurs in people aged 70 to 75. It is rare in people under 50.

For more information on the disease visit: www. actionpulmonaryfibrosis.org.