Geoff 'Dodge' Varley

Geoff was a lovely man, a family man and comedian. He was always hardworking and strived to be the best in which ever business he was in, whether in his early days or the various businesses he ran with his devoted wife Eileen.

He was multi-talented and amassed a huge range of tools and machinery during his "retirement" to soothe his woodworking passion.

He was immensely proud of his children and grandchildren and their achievements always made him smile. He would do anything for anyone and it would make him happy to know he had made a difference

Geoff is finally pain free and will most likely be sat in a garden somewhere with a can of Carlsberg, as he used to say, it's always 5 o'clock somewhere! Geoff's passing has left a huge hole in all our lives, they definitely broke the mould when they made him.

We were blessed that Geoff's journey with terminal pancreatic cancer was longer than most, surviving 22 months from diagnosis. He refused to accept that cancer would win, having already beaten bowel cancer 4 years earlier. In his mind there were no problems, only solutions.

He took every option offered to him starting with 12 rounds of Folfirinox, adding on GemCap and finally having the strength and bravery to take on a new drug trial.

He was stubborn as a mule right to the end, even determined to walk out of the hospital the day before he died, with just a handful of tablets despite his unbearable pain.

Over the last few decades, research into pancreatic cancer has been underfunded, yet pancreatic cancer has the higest mortality rate of all the major cancers. It is incredibly difficult to diagnose early enough to be able to treat effectively. With only a 3% share of the UK cancer research fund it means that every donation really counts.