A father who has devoted his life to campaigning for meningitis research has described himself as “just an ordinary bloke” as he marks the 40th anniversary of his son’s death. Steve Dayman and his wife Gloria saw son Spencer die of meningitis in 1982 when he was 14 months old, prompting them to set up a support group for other parents.
This grew into the charity Meningitis Now, which has spearheaded vaccine research and fought for babies to get meningitis vaccines on the NHS. Mr Dayman is launching the charity’s new campaign – Spencer’s Legacy: Nobody Left Behind – to raise £300,000 to fund research into vaccines and provide a postgraduate student placement at the Spencer Dayman Research Laboratories at the University of Bristol.
Recalling the death of his son on November 2, 1982, Mr Dayman, 74, said: “Spencer had been out for his morning walk in his pushchair and had his midday nap. Normally when he woke up from his lunchtime nap he’d be jumping up and down in his cot, shaking the bars as if to say ‘get me out of here’.
