Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday, a day when we should all reflect and take a few moments to give our thanks to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom today.

I’ll be making my usual pilgrimage to the cemetery in Ipswich to place a poppy on each of my parents’ graves. They both played their part in the Second World War; mum was a sergeant in the ATS, and dad was in the Special Air Service. I still don’t know too much about my father’s war record, it wasn’t something he particularly wanted to talk about, but we have finally confirmed he was definitely a member of the special forces. Thanks to some hard work by my cousin Garry Murphy, we’ve now got his army number plus the date and location he enlisted, so hopefully we’ll be able to uncover more of what he was involved in.

Mum was in the ATS and rose to the rank of sergeant, something she was very proud of and so was I, she was the matriarch of the family so it’s no great surprise.

We talked from time to time about those years but sadly not in great detail. I remember a few things, like the time she and her friend were in a pub and two soldiers were talking about them in back slang, not realising mum and her friend spoke it too and understood every word they were saying about them. We would often speak to each other using it, I wonder if you or anyone you know still speaks back slang too?

Her old army chum Barbara, used to be a dinner lady at Northgate Grammar school in Ipswich where I was educated. Let’s put it this way, whenever Barbara was serving, I never went hungry! She would also recount the times our late Queen Elizabeth II, who was also in the ATS, would be working on the vehicles that needed attention. She was very proud to have been alongside her Majesty and was so pleased to see her at the Cenotaph every year.

I’m equally pleased that the Princess of Wales and his Majesty the King will both be in attendance this year. They’ve both been dealing with their respective cancer diagnoses with great strength and fortitude. By each talking about their cancer they’ve shown it doesn’t discriminate against anyone. In fact one in every two of us will receive a cancer diagnosis in our lifetime. Treatments are getting better all the time, but the key is early diagnosis.

Unbelievably, 25% of people who get invited to a screening appointment don’t show. Please go if you get an invitation. It could save your life. Don’t miss the chance, life is precious.

You only have to look at Sir Chris Hoy to see how cancer can attack even the healthiest of us. Chris has a terminal diagnosis but if we had regular prostate cancer screening for younger men, then maybe his outlook would be much better. As CEO of Cancer Support Suffolk, I support his call for a proper Prostate Cancer screening programme to be implemented in this country. The simple blood test isn’t perfect, but I and many others think it’s better than doing no checks at all. Come on Wes Streeting get moving on it.

So please if you think something isn’t right in your body, go and get it checked out. It could be nothing, but it might be something. If it is hopefully it can be dealt with swiftly and successfully.

I hope you’ll join me at 11am tomorrow to silently remember the fallen. It’s the least we can do. Oh and if you’ve got a lump or a rash get it looked at!