Adrian Marchant

My bright loving son died at the age of just 18. He came home from university for Christmas, full of life and excitement at seeing his friends again and telling us how much he was enjoying Southampton studying geophysics.

On the morning of 2nd January 1982 I sat on his bed, asking him what he would like for his breakfast. He fell back on his pillow and died.

He did not smoke or take drugs and was a keen sportsman, playing badminton at county level. Paramedics were with us in minutes but to no avail. No one had heard of young sudden cardiac death and the two postmortems found nothing wrong. The inquest six months later was a bit of farce.

It is good to know that progress has been made and that tests are now available for young people. The last music he bought that Christmas was Jon and Vangelis “I’ll find my way home!”

Thirty two years later I miss him as much as ever. This photo was taken two days before he died.

Pat Jones