A friend of courageous student Simon Wooller is taking inspiration from his life as she faces up to an uncertain future in the shadow of cancer.

Simon, 25, lost his battle against cancer earlier this month, just days after learning he had gained a first-class honours degree from Bradford University against all the odds.

For months, he had carried on revising for his BSc in Physiotherapy as he hid the tragic truth about his terminal illness from his parents who believed he would eventually recover.

Today Tamsin Ford, who met Simon when they were studying Anatomical Sciences at Manchester University, paid an emotional tribute to the man she credits for turning her life around.

She said she had been devastated to learn of his death and now faces a battle of her own after discovering she has a lump under her arm.

She will have surgery to remove the lump in November but does not yet know if it is malignant or benign.

Tamsin, 26, a mother of two from Nottingham, said she bade her own personal farewell to the man who had become her best friend.

"I went to Anglesey, to a deserted part of the coast, and wrote 'goodbye' in the sand. There was just me and the sea and the sky and I hoped he knew."

She described how Simon, from Fairweather Green, Bradford, had taken her under his wing at university, and how his death had given her life new meaning.

"I think Simon's death will have a profound effect on my life. It's the biggest lesson you can learn: that someone your age isn't here any more. How can I sit here and worry?

"My tribute to Simon and myself is that he's going to have turned my life around. If he doesn't, I'm not a good friend to him."

Tamsin last spoke to Simon when her son George was born just over a year ago. She had suffered post natal depression when her daughter Lucy, now three, was born and Simon helped talk through her fears that the same might happen again.

She did not know that he was fighting lymph cancer and found out by chance after reading about his death in a national newspaper. "I thought I was going to be sick. I couldn't believe it," she said, "He was a completely brilliant person. He was the perfect friend. Every time you saw him, you felt better for seeing him.

"He was witty and wise. If you had a problem, he would talk it through. It was almost as if he'd lived before and knew what to do.

"It doesn't seem right that such a special light isn't here any more. I feel so sorry for his family who are going to have such a job trying to cope without him."

Simon was awarded the Alison Walker Memorial Prize for the most outstanding student at Bradford University for his academic achievement in the face of his illness.

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