I went into the breakfast room and sat down at my laptop. I thought, initially, "Dad's been here before... he's a tough old boot... he'll pull through like he always does and I'll see him in two weeks..."

I spent some time working on Shadows of the Quantinex, started making an early lunch and thought "What the hell am I doing? What if Dad doesn't pull through...?"

I went on-line, booked the earliest flight I could, then rang my sister to tell her I'd be on my way later. She was on the train from London, heading to Newcastle.

I ate lunch, got my things ready to pack. Did some more writing for Shadows of Quantinex... had a phone call with Jo mid-afternoon... we were talking about all the things that had happened in the last two weeks, getting burgled, etc, and I said "What's going to go wrong next?"

At that very moment, literally within a nanosecond of me finishing that sentence, the landline rang. I answered it. My sister was on the other end. I could hear the emotion in her voice. Everything went really silent in my head. She said, "I'm sorry. He's gone."

Dad had held on until she arrived. He died peacefully, with my sister holding his hand and my mum stroking his hair. His eyes had been scanning the room, looking at my sister, looking at mum. Then his face had registered something, and he was looking straight up... mum said, "What can you see? Is it something nice?"

A tear slowly rolled down my dad's cheek, and that's when he died.

This description gives me great strength and has helped me coped. As has the love and affection of my friends, so thanks go out to all of those who have sent words by voice, by text and by hand-written message.