It was June. The cruiser HMS Glamorgan was bombarding Argentinian positions when she became a target for the enemy's shore-based Exocet missiles.

British commandos on shore saw a streak of light cut through the darkness. It was heading out to sea and picking up speed. It was an Exocet.

Glamorgan fired Sea Cat missiles to try to shoot it down but the Exocet struck its target, killing Petty Officer Kelvin McCallum and twelve shipmates.

His parents, from Portsmouth, remember:

`Anyone with a services background knows that if two padres come your door it means there has been a death. If it's one, it means an injury.

`When I opened our door there were two on the step,' said Roy McCallum.

Inside the typical Pompey terrace house that day in 1982 were three bereaved.

Sheila and Roy McCallum had lost their son and only child, Kelvin. On a sofa, transfixed with shock, was Kelvin's wife Angela, six months pregnant with their first child.

Today the grandparents speak with joy of their special granddaughter Gemma, of her mother -`the daughter we never had' and of Kelvin, their `gift'.

Mrs McCallum said: `Before we married I was told I never would have children but nine months and one week after our wedding I was pregnant. Kelvin really made us a family.'

At 17, the former St Luke's pupil who had fancied becoming an architect, instead decided to join the Fleet Air Arm because he was mad on helicopters.

He was a 27-year-old petty officer artificer when he sailed to Gibraltar aboard HMS Glamorgan.

Mr McCallum said: `It was his first ship. He need not have gone because his wife had not been too well during her pregnancy. But she was getting better.

`Kelvin only had about a month's remaining duty on Glamorgan and was only going to be away a couple of weeks. But the ship was sent from Gibraltar direct to the Falklands. We never saw our son again.'

The Exocet missile that smashed into Glamorgan's hangar on June 12 killed Kelvin and 12 shipmates. Kelvin was buried at sea.

His mother said: `I don't think he would have been happy about that. You see, although he loved the Fleet Air Arm he didn't like water.'

His parents tried to put aside their own agony in order to help support their son's young widow. Sick in hospital before and after her baby's birth, she was inconsolable for months.

Mr McCallum said: `It was a bad, bad time for the three of us. Of course it helped when Emma was born. She looks so like her dad although it's sad knowing she will never know her father.'

The couple praised the support and friendship given them by the then vicar of St Mary's, Portsea, Rev Michael Brotherton.

`He was always there for us. He understood. With his help we got a quiet spot in the church's garden of remembrance, a beautiful bronze crucifix. We go there and think of Kelvin. Talk to him.'

Mrs McCallum said: `We still have his letters upstairs. In one he told us the crew lay on the deck when bombs were dropping.

`We pressed very hard for a memorial for all those young men and now all the families can unite in Old Portsmouth for anniversaries.'

As Kelvin had wanted, his daughter whose name he had chosen before sailing was christened on board HMS Glamorgan.

After the ceremony her grandfather went below to the hangar where his son had died. `I let go. It was the first time I had cried and let it out. Kelvin was such a happy lad and so kind.

`Now his mother and me talk about him as if he is still with us. We say how much he would have liked a particular fashion or piece of music. And we only have to look at Gemma to see him.

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