My father Victor Donald Siddons served in both world wars from beginning to end - and cheated death more than once.

He was a very brave man who flew TE Lawrence whenever necessary, and according to one testimony, 'rescued him, when tight pressed, by daringly swooping down in his aeroplane and taking Lawrence up.'

He was born at Oundle in 1892, on May 24, which was also Queen Victoria's birthday - so whenever the bells were rung in celebration young Siddons thought they were pealing for him.

Born into a Methodist family, he started training for the ministry, but joined the Northamptonshire Yeomanry when war broke out in 1914. He was sent to Arabia to train as a pilot and joined the Arab rebellion against the Turks, under Lawrence of Arabia.

His many medals, including the DFC, together with the complete Arab costume he sometimes wore, are kept at the Dorset Tank Museum.

In 1932 my father went to visit Lawrence, who was living at Myrtle Cottage, Hythe, Southampton, but he wasn't in; however, the feted war hero sent a letter to him which is at the Imperial War Museum.

By now an airman involved in boat-building and using the name TE Shaw, Lawrence said he regretted not being there to meet him and added: 'It must be strange, from the safety of a ministry, to look back upon Arabia. My path has been less progressive.'

Although billeted at Myrtle Cottage he preferred life in the camp 'where there are others to rub up with.'

My father's ministry took him all over Britain - I was born in Wealdstone, Harrow - but as soon as the Second World War loomed he became chaplain to the Duke of Wellington's Regiment and went to France.

He was among the men who survived Dunkirk - but only just. Leading 17 men, he was hailed a hero when he and four others turned back from a boat which could accommodate only 12 of them. But in truth the boat's commander had a gun and forced the last five to seek an alternative craft.

This was a typically modest admission from a man who went out to North Africa as a chaplain with the Eighth Army under Montgomery and saw action afterwards in Italy and Greece.

He had a miraculous escape in Greece when a Communist bomb was thrown into his office only minutes after he had left for an appointment elsewhere. He became an MBE for his work as a supervisory chaplain during this period.

On the day he was evacuated from Dunkirk he lost all his personal possessions except for a silver communion set given to him by my mother as a wedding gift; he saved it by wrapping it in his chaplain's scarf and secreting it in his tunic.

When he died in 1967, aged 75, he was still an RAF chaplain.

Read about Barbara's life in Colwyn Bay.