Dom always used to emphasise that he was a 59er and Phil a 58er even though they were only 9 days apart, I can hear him laughing about it now. For their 40th birthdays we (us 3 + bro Stevie D) went to Australia and New Zealand and had many ‘adventures’ along the way.

A highlight for Dom was visiting and taking us on the tour of the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground). He was so proud to have his photo taken on such hallowed turf not knowing he had apparently become part of the stadium's floodlighting system with some funky new headgear – I can only assume the photographer knew!

In New Zealand Dom had planned for us to walk up mount Taranaki on the day of his 40th birthday. He was devastated to have to turn back part way up because of vertigo
– we got back down later to find him hard at it on the housework sweeping out the camper van in a very muttering and grumbly mood. We’d had a tricky walk up Wentworth falls in Australia a few weeks before – not a good idea to take a vertigo sufferer up a series of metal stairways up a sheer cliff face in a thunder storm with lightning to boot – Stevie D did a grand job of following behind and basically talking Dom through putting one foot in front of another till we reached solid ground above us.

Not to be defeated he overcame his vertigo in true Dom style by successfully reaching the top of Kilimanjaro a few years later. Always up for a challenge and committed to whatever he approached in life.