The family of a teenage Brentford fan who died unexpectedly from an undiagnosed heart condition have launched free screenings to save the lives of other young people.
Football mad Tom Clabburn, 14, died in sleep in October 2007.
Since his death, his parents, BBC journalists Paul Clabburn, 49, and Claire Prosser, 49, have helped to raise funds for charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) to raise awareness about heart conditions.
Both have written extensively about the devastating effect their son’s death has had on them.
On what would have been Tom’s birthday, in November 2007, Mr Clabburn wrote: “Today should have been my son’s 15th birthday.
“Instead I am writing about life after Tom.
“He had been fit, active, healthy, doing well at school, bright and happy.
“We were not, in any way, prepared.
“The event I most dreaded has happened, and there are no words to describe how I feel. “That, though, has never defeated any hack worth their salt.
“So here goes – how do I feel? It’s like a tsunami of the soul, a huge destructive overwhelming force which leaves nothing good in its wake and whose ripples surge outwards to touch all those who are near you.
“Life’s landscape changes irrevocably, yet the painfully familiar remains as a reminder of what was.
“Somehow, in all the devastation, there are tiny patches of upland on which to rebuild.
“Not quickly, not easily, but you can rebuild. I cling to that thought.”
Mr Clabburn urged people to make use of the extended screening after the fund extended its sponsorship from two to four days in June.
He said: “Originally we were to sponsor two days of screenings, about 200 people, on the weekend of June 27 and June 29.”
The Tom Clabburn Memorial fund will be running free heart screenings for young people at Brentford Football Club as part of a CRY and Philips Test My Heart Tour, the first free national heart screening programme, which aims to promote awareness of sudden death syndrome and sudden cardiac arrest among 14 to 35-year-olds.
