Jo Whiley has shared one of the most emotional moments of her life after revealing how her younger sister Frances came to understand that their beloved father, Martin, was dying.
Frances, 53, lives with Cri du Chat syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes severe learning disabilities and developmental delays.
For Jo and her family, helping her process what was happening was heartbreaking.
Frances repeatedly asked whether her father was going to die.
Rather than hide the truth, the family gently explained that he was not going to come home.
She paused.
Then asked where he was going.
Their deeply religious mother told her that he was “going to Jesus”.
Frances then asked how old her father was.
“86.”
“87?” she replied.
The answer was no.
He would not reach 87.
Again, Frances quietly processed the words.
But amid the enormous sadness came one unforgettable moment.
As Martin lay barely conscious, Frances prepared to leave and desperately called out to him:
“Say my name, say my name!”
Then, somehow, he responded.
“Frances.”
One word.
But it meant everything.
Since then, Frances has repeatedly said: “Daddy said my name.”
Jo became visibly emotional as she recalled the moment, describing it as something almost perfect in the middle of their grief.
For the family, it became a final connection between a devoted father and the daughter he had spent a lifetime loving and protecting.
A father remembered for kindness
Martin died aged 86 after living with Parkinson’s disease.
Announcing his death, Jo remembered him not simply as her father, but as an extraordinarily kind, funny and selfless man who spent his life caring for others.
His own childhood had been painfully difficult.
As a boy, he contracted tuberculosis and spent two years alone in a London sanatorium.
He later grew up without his parents and was raised by a family friend.
But instead of allowing that sadness to define him, Martin built something entirely different for his own family.
He gave his daughters and grandchildren the loving childhood he never had.
Jo described him as the “greatest Dad” and “everybody’s favourite Grandad”.
His special bond with Frances
Becoming the father of a child with learning disabilities in the 1970s brought many challenges, but Martin embraced Frances completely.
He became a passionate supporter of people with learning disabilities simply through the way he treated them — with warmth, dignity and acceptance.
Frances and her father shared an especially close bond.
She remembered the countless stories he told her night after night.
And in his final days, Jo watched that bond reverse in the most touching way.
Frances became incredibly gentle with him.
She understood, in her own way, that something was changing.
Then came that final gift.
Her name.
Music was always part of his story
Martin also helped inspire Jo’s lifelong love of music.
Working as an electrician, he would carry a huge stereo around building sites, filling the day with songs.
Jo affectionately called him the family’s “OG DJ”.
Long before she built her own career around music and broadcasting, her father had already created the soundtrack to her childhood.
He loved making people laugh, loved a singalong and became the kind of character everyone seemed to know.
The difficult final chapter
Before his death, Jo had spoken openly about how hard life had become for the family.
Her father’s Parkinson’s sometimes left him confused, including one heartbreaking moment when he asked whether the illness would simply “go away”.
Jo had to explain that it would not.
At the same time, her mother was recovering from back surgery, leaving Jo spending long periods between hospitals, family responsibilities and work.
She described life as simply trying to get through each day.
Now, after Martin’s death, the family is left with grief — but also decades of memories.
For Frances, one memory may matter more than all the others.
As her father slipped in and out of consciousness, she asked him for one last thing.
“Say my name.”
And he did.
“Frances.”
A single word.
A final connection.
And a moment his family will never forget.
