HEARTFELT tributes have flooded in for a popular father who died just days before his son’s wedding.

Fifty-four-year-old Gavin Solly, who lived in Crossways, Dorchester, died at the Joseph Weld Hospice on November 24.

He was told he had terminal cancer in September after years of struggling to get a gastric bypass operation.

Mr Solly fell down concrete stairs while working at Dorset County Hospital in 2000, breaking his coccyx and damaging two discs in his back.

He stopped working because it was too painful to walk or sit down and retreated to his bedroom.

He barely ventured out for 12 years and went from 20 to 35 stone.

Mr Solly has been described by his wife Christine, 54, as a ‘popular family man who would do anything for anyone’.

She added: “Gavin was diagnosed with cancer in September this year and told he probably didn’t have long left.

“He was a committed, caring and kind-hearted family man; a loving son of John and Jean and to his seventeen grandchildren and children Kerry, Becky, Alex, Kelly and Craig.

“He would do anything for them and loved them so much.

“His son’s wedding was on Saturday and he promised everyone he would never miss it.

“We’re all devastated but are treating the wedding as a celebration of Gavin’s life. I’m sure he would have loved that.”

Mr Solly was denied a gastric band operation in 2009.

He was told he would need to lose more weight and needed treatment for a sleeping disorder which affected his breathing.

Mrs Solly added that while at home Gavin had created a small eBay internet business making and selling incubators for birds and reptiles, which he really enjoyed.

She said: “He never got the gastric bypass he so desperately wanted, but was so determined to lose weight that he lost 14 stone in two years, getting down to 21 stone altogether.

“I just keep thinking now that if he had lost more weight we may have found the cancer earlier.

“Gavin was the kind of man that would do anything for anyone, and he will be missed so much by all who knew him.”

  •  Mr Solly’s funeral service will be at Weymouth Crematorium tomorrow, December 4 at 1pm. His family ask for no mourning clothes by request and family flowers only.

Instead, donations can be given to the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust and should be sent to Grassby Funeral Service, 8 Princes Street, Dorchester.