Writer and TV star Arabella Weir launches World Cancer Day in memory of Dunfermline dad Sir Michael Weir

The Fast Show and Two Doors Down TV star also lost her mum, step-mum and best friend to the disease and wants Scots to wear a unity band to highlight the battle to eradicate it.

Her father, diplomat Sir Michael Weir, a former British ambassador to Egypt who was born and bred in Dunfermline, lived with prostate cancer for more than a decade but kept the illness a secret from his children.

Arabella said: "That was my dad all over.

“Seeing him, laughing with him, spending time with him, you’d never have known he was fighting cancer.

"Dad had been so very active all his life, even skiing in his 70s, so when he did suddenly weaken in the last few weeks of his life, his decline seemed to come out of nowhere."

Sir Michael, who was dux of Dunfermline High School before winning a scholarship to Edinburgh University, was in the RAF during the Second World War and became an intelligence officer.

He was involved in the Middle East for 40 years, including the role of ambassador to Egypt in 1979, and was 81 when he died in 2006. Arabella said: “I think my dad didn’t want to deal with seeing his children crying.

"There will have been a bit of wanting to protect us too.

"I must have told him I loved him about 10 times per visit in those last few weeks of his life and I’m glad I did.

"I was very, very proud of dad.

"It was a big leap for dad, a lower middle class boy from Dunfermline to become an ambassador. He did so well.”

Unity bands are on sale for a suggested donation of £2 with the money going to Cancer Research UK to fund their work to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.

Arabella, 59, said: "Wearing a unity band or donating is a simple and easy way to show support, to help fund vital research to develop new treatments so more families have more tomorrows."

Unfortunately for the actress, her father's death was the first of a series of cancer blows for Arabella.

Her step mum, Hilary Reid, who had been married to Sir Michael for 30 years was also diagnosed with cancer and died from myeloma in 2008 aged 63.

In May 2009 Arabella’s mum, Alison Walker, died from breast cancer aged 83.

Arabella, who is mum to Isabella, 19, and Archie, 17, said: “One of the things I’m grateful for is that I don’t get squeamish about the practical side to caring for someone who is unwell.

“I’m good at just rolling my sleeves up and getting on with it. When you’re dying it doesn’t help to have someone sitting there saying, ‘I can’t cope with this’.

"That only makes things worse. My mum was very good about it. She said that everyone has to die and she came to accept it.”

But it felt almost unbearable for Arabella when her best friend, Helen Scott-Lidgett, died from ovarian cancer in July 2012.

Helen, who was a PR executive in London, teacher and special advisor to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was just 63.

Arabella said: “I’ve got a few best friends but Helen was my absolute soul mate.

“She was my best, best, best friend. She rang me and said, ‘It’s bad news. I have cancer.’

"It was a July morning and I went round to her house. We opened up a bottle of champagne.

"Doctors said she had about a year and a half but she in fact had four years almost to the day which was pretty incredible.

"People talk about fighting cancer. Helen overdid it a bit. She just wasn’t accepting that she was going to die."

She continued: "I went with Helen to her chemotherapy sessions.

"Helen and I had a real laugh, even about her oncologist. Helen said, 'Wait until you meet him. He looks like the playwright Tom Stoppard'.

"When I met him I said, ‘I’m sorry he doesn’t look like Tom Stoppard at all, more like Barry Manilow.’

"A cancer diagnosis is no laughing matter but Helen and I managed to find humour even in her darkest moments, laughing almost to the end and sharing our closeness during her treatment for which I’ll always be eternally grateful.

“I helped to nurse her and I last saw her about an hour before she died.

"You don’t know you’re going to rise to these challenges in life until they happen. I loved her very much so I wanted to do everything I could to help her. There’s not a day when I don’t miss Helen."

Cancer Research UK is working with nine other charities to encourage people to wear a unity band and help raise vital funds.

Lisa Adams, the charity's spokeswoman in Scotland, said: “World Cancer Day provides an opportunity for people in Scotland as well as across the world, to show that together we can be a powerful force to beat cancer sooner.

“Whatever the motivation, to remember a loved one, celebrate people who have overcome the disease, or to rally in support of those going through treatment, World Cancer Day is a chance to get involved and help more people survive this disease.

"Survival has doubled since the 1970s and Cancer Research UK’s work has been at the heart of that progress, but every step our doctors, nurses and scientists take relies on donations from the public and the tireless fundraising of our supporters.”

Unity bands, available in three different colours, are available from all 84 Cancer Research UK shops in Scotland.

They are also available online at www.cruk.org.uk/worldcancerday