A man who has seen all his family battle cancer plans to sky-dive in aid of the nurses who cared for them.

Gareth Staples, known as Grif, will be jumping out of a plane on September 20 at Headcorn Aerodrome in aid of the Macmillan nurses who cared for his parents, who both died of cancer.

His father David had stomach cancer for three years after being diagnosed in November 1999. Mr Staples, from Sevenoaks, died at the age of 72.

His mother June Knight had non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and fought the disease for two years before passing away at the age of 73 in 2002.

His brother Graham had Hodgkin’s Disease, unrelated to his mother’s, 17 years ago when he was 30.

He endured 14 months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, was given the all-clear, and now the pair live next door to each other in Thackeray Road, Larkfield.

His sister, Heather Clement, had bowel cancer in 2003, and had surgery to remove 80 per cent of her large intestine, and now has the all-clear.

Mr Staples, a former retained firefighter who has two daughters with wife Katriona, took part in a tandem sky-dive – he cannot jump on his own because he was diagnosed as epileptic in 2002 – purely for pleasure two years ago, which was bought for him as a present.

He said: “It was fantastic. I had wanted to do it since I was a child. I said I would do it again for charity.

“I wanted to do it for the Macmillan nurses because they aren’t just there for the victims but the families, too.

“I didn’t need them so much but my mum and dad were very complimentary about what they did for them,” he added.

Mr Staples hopes to raise £5,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.