‘YOU was a good man, and did good things’.

Dave Rogers used the line from a Thomas Hardy novel as he said his final goodbye to his 24-year-old son Adam at his funeral.

The epitaph fits perfectly with the man who brightened up the lives of his friends and family before his own was so tragically cut short.

Now his parents Dave and Pat have launched the Consequences campaign in his memory, so he can continue to do ‘good things’ even in death.

Dave, who describes Adam as a ‘better version of myself’, said they were sure their son would have backed the campaign.

“We were very concerned not to become consumed by negative emotions.

"We did not want the anger to take over our lives, partly for us and partly for Adam. He was not an angry or vengeful person.

“Adam would always tell this joke to newcomers into his group of friends – ‘Why did the pie cross the road? Because he was meat and potato’ – it always worked. He could take a joke. He didn’t mind being laughed at. His stock in trade was just being daft.”

Adam was known as Podge which started at Sacred Heart Primary School. It was also his father’s nickname as a youngster, one of many similarities they shared.

Dave said: “I was lucky as a dad to be at home when Adam was born. I did a lot of feeding, nappy changing and I spent much more time helping than most dads.

“We were similar in many ways, such as habits and temperament, but he was a better person than me.”

Dave added: “He once wasn’t picked for a school football cup final. He wanted to go to the game and support his friends. He kept it up all the way through, but when he came home he went straight to his room and sobbed himself to sleep.”

After progressing through St Bede’s and St Mary’s College – where Pat was assistant principal – Adam studied at the University of Cumbria and worked for Fraser Eagle.

Once, his job took him to London, where Adam immediately remarked on ‘how miserable everybody was’.

He started a campaign to get commuters to smile. It was, according to his proud parents, a big success.

After splitting with his long-term girlfriend Emma, Adam had returned to the family home in Dukes Brow.

Then on July 4, 2009, having cleaned the house and gone to football practice, he took his parents to Manchester Airport. They were flying to Malta to celebrate Pat’s retirement just three days earlier. They hugged and said their goodbyes. Adam wished his parents a great holiday. His father wished him a ‘good night out’.

But his night out was to end in unthinkable tragedy. His parents flew home less than 24 hours later to be at his bedside as he lay connected to a life-support machine.

At 2.29pm on Sunday, July 5, with tests showing no brain activity, it was turned off.

Dave said he and Pat arrived in Malta around 1.30am.

“We were woken by a phone call at 6am Malta time, 5am UK time, from our youngest son Jamie, who was at the hospital.

“I thought about the house or somebody having an accident, but I couldn’t hear Pat talking very much. So I got up to see what was happening and as I put my head round the door, she mouthed ‘it’s Adam’.” They booked the next flight out of Malta and were back in Lancashire by midday.

After his death, his parents were overwhelmed by tributes they received. Pat and Dave cherish these letters, including one from a couple who knew Adam while he was working at a Cumbrian health club.

It said: “It was so typical of Adam’s attitude to people that he would want to help when seeing someone in trouble – that it should have led to his death is a terrible thing.

“He was a fine young man and a credit to you. We are elderly and, unlike some people, Adam would always have time for us, with a smile and often a joke or conversation.”

His friends set up a tribute site on Facebook and made a book from the pictures and kind words posted.

Pat says one day she hopes to be able to read the book all the way through.

“They find such beautiful words. His friends have been incredible, very eloquent.

"They talk about him with such affection and still struggle.”

Pat said with time it ‘doesn't get better, it gets worse’.

She said: “After the initial shock, every day we’re further away from him and every day we miss him more.

“I’m so used to having four sons: there’s a missing place at dinner.

"At Christmas we all come together, all the brothers and their partners and the children.

"There was just this awful empty space. It’s not that it was the first Christmas without him, it was the fact that we’ll never have him with us at Christmas ever again.”