To raise money for the charity and to honour their shipyard worker dad, they will be walking around 17 miles from Belfast City Hall to Deborah’s home in Whitehead this Saturday. “He was an easygoing, gentle soul,” says Robert of his father. “I can always remember him being out in the shed, making wooden figures and when he was ill, he used to eat ice lollies a lot then make sculptures with the wooden sticks.
We still have some wooden Christmas trees that he made. He was just such a loving father. “Unfortunately, a lot of memories we have are of him being unwell — a lot of time spent visiting in hospital.
Despite his illness, we remember happier times with him and our mum, going for drives along the backroads and on one occasion having to walk from Craigantlet to Ballyrobert to get help for our broken-down car. “We spent six weeks in Australia over Christmas in 1998 - our last Christmas with our dad — which we thankfully have videos from that we’ve made digital copies of. “It’s bittersweet watching them and hearing his voice but they are great snapshots of the person our dad was and something tangible that we can go back to forever.
” Despite 25 years having passed, the grief of losing a parent never dissipates. “There are times when we’ll be hit with a pang of sadness and grief out of nowhere,” says Robert. “Losing a parent at such a young age is very strange as you have to deal with the grief as a child but then try to process the loss as an ad.
