A family are appealing for help to continue an ex-serviceman’s fundraising after his death.

Stephen Briscombe, of Aycliffe, Dover, had co-written and recorded a song for Help for Heroes in the summer but last month died suddenly aged 56.

Mr Briscombe’s daughter Sarah said: “The fundraising was so important to him. He still had a lot of family in the army and was still interested in what went on there.

“He was so proud of that song and he wanted it to go viral and raise plenty of money.”

His funeral is today and the family is asking people who attend to donate to the charity.

Mr Briscombe, a Northern Ireland veteran, wrote the lyrics to the song The Final Flight and composed the music with Ben Milberry, a university friend of Sarah.

The song focuses on the body of a soldier flown home after they are killed in battle and covers all conflicts.

Sarah, now 31, compiled the moving video, which has images of both world wars and the Falklands conflict.

There are also images of coffins draped in Union flags brought home by transporter planes, a scene repeatedly shown in recent years when dead soldiers were repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Briscombe and Mr Milberry recorded the song at a studio at the Charlton Shopping Centre on July 29 last year and it was put online on August 18 to raise money for Help for Heroes.

But Mr Briscombe, a railway engineer, was suddenly struck down by a massive heart attack while working at Abbey Wood, south London on January 31.

He was rushed to the capital’s King’s College Hospital but died.

His wife Maria, 52, and daughters Sarah and Tiffany, now 28, got to his bedside in time to say goodbye.

The Final Flight can be bought via iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music and all other main digital music stores.

For every download, 10% of the proceeds will be donated to Help For Heroes.

Stephen Briscombe served in the most dangerous part of Europe in the 1970s and 1980s: Northern Ireland.

He did three tours of duty at the height of The Troubles, the 30-year guerrilla war that claimed the lives of 705 British soldiers.

Troopers were vulnerable to being instantly picked off on the streets by snipers or blown up by roadside bombs.

The British Army’s chief enemy were terrorists from the IRA (Irish Republican Army) who were notorious for their meticulously planned attacks.

Just a month after Mr Briscombe’s first tour 18 soldiers were killed at Warrenpoint in County Down.

An army convoy had first been struck by a country roadside bomb hidden in a lorryload of straw.

The IRA had worked out where the soldiers would then take cover and planted a second bomb there. They were finished off with gunfire.

One of the worst places was the so-called Bandit Country of South Armagh, particularly around the village of Crossmaglen.

A total of 124 British soldiers died in that small area during the conflict, 17% of the total.

The area was considered so deadly that troops would arrive only by helicopter because of roadside bombs and even an army helicopter was once shot down.

Mr Briscombe’s three tours of duty in the province were from March to July 1979, January to May 1982 and the same months of 1987.

He was a Sergeant in the Royal Hampshire Regiment.

He joined in September 1977 when he was 17, and left October 1993 when he was 33, thankfully ending his career unhurt.

Mr Briscombe was also part of the peacekeeping garrison in the Falkland Islands, from November 1982 to April 1983 shortly after British forces drove out Argentine invaders.

His service was during the Cold War so in 1983 he was also posted for two years to the then East-West divided Berlin and had three 10 to 11-month placements in what was West Germany.