David de Laney was born June 11th 1971 in Shoreham by Sea, England and passed away peacefully in his sleep at home in Naples Florida on December 14th 2016. He was surrounded by his wife and daughter after a courageous, but short battle with Cancer.

He is survived by his wife Kerry and daughter Victoria, his parents Valerie and Colin, and brothers Andrew and Steven.

He finished school and went to college to train to be a butcher to follow in the family business, C & V Jones & Son Family Butcher. He also started a little window cleaning round with his friend Chris. They later changed direction and opened their 1st cell phone store in Shoreham by Sea in 1993.

David met Kerry in Brighton in 1995 and they got married in September 1996. Their beautiful daughter Victoria was born in 1997. When she was born he wouldn’t let the nurses take her out of his sight and cuddled her all the time. He was very concerned that they may accidently switch babies in error and he was not going to let that happen. As she grew older he continued to be protective of his little girl and was able to frighten away any prospective boyfriends with just a look. He was very proud that she got into university a year early and consistently got on the dean or presidents list.

He opened a further 3 cell phone stores before selling the business in 2006. Then David, Kerry and Victoria decided to start a new adventure and moved to Naples Florida in 2007 where they purchased a swimming pool cleaning and repair company. Through his 9 years of owing Pelican Pools he grew very close to many of his customers and he thought of them and his employees as extended family.

David loved motorbikes from his early teens much to his mother’s dismay! In 2014 he picked this hobby back up and purchased a Harley Davidson Breakout which he liked to ride up to Fort Myers Beach and Captiva. He then got carried away and purchased an old Chopper to fix up. He sold the Breakout and got a Harley Davidson cruising bike so that he and Kerry could ride down to the Keys for short weekend getaways.

As you may know he also loved Dogs. Kerry and Victoria wore him down for 6 months before he finally agreed to get one in 2006, well here we are 10 years later and they have 6 four legged friends.

David loved the Christmas season. Each year he would insist that they put up the tree and decorations the weekend before Thanksgiving, with this year being no exception, the only difference was he sat in his chair and supervised Kerry and Victoria. Every year they would always try to watch a Christmas movie most evenings from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve.

The thing he loved best about living in Naples was going to the beach and watching sunset. When he was not too busy working, he liked to go two or three times a week – it never got old. In 2014 on one such trip he discovered a beach-reggae band playing at Times Square on Fort Myers Beach. He was immediately hooked and every Friday rain or shine, David and Kerry and sometimes Victoria could be found sitting in their deck chairs watching High Tide perform all evening.

David was a car enthusiast. His first car was a battered, bright orange 3 wheeler Robin Reliant. The seats were not even bolted down so when he took his mother out for the first time… well let’s just say she wasn’t impressed. In his time, he purchased many cars, his favorites being his BMW 218, Audi S5 convertible, Golf R and most recently a bright yellow Corvette Z06 which was his pride a joy. Although he loved nice cars, he looked after them so well, that he would not take one out if it looked like it would rain. He kept them in showroom condition at all times. On one occasion David and Kerry were out having a meal to celebrate her birthday and he just got a feeling that something wasn’t right, so between courses he went out to check on the BMW which was just fine. However, when they came out of the restaurant 20 minutes later, someone had stolen both of the door mirrors. He was so angry about that because he had only just upgraded them to the top of the line “M” series mirror, which had cost him over 500 English pounds!

Victoria inherited his love of photography. He was very particular about how he wanted the photos to come out. On many occasions the subjects of the photos would get very frustrated because he could easily take half an hour just to get one good enough photo. Usually the second or third one would have been acceptable to most people, but David was a perfectionist and things just had to be right. Despite this however, he did not like his photo taken, he hardly ever smiled for the camera and would complain whenever someone tried to take his photo. So any photo of him smiling is quite an achievement.

David was a creature of habit, if he found a nice restaurant he would just go there each time he wanted to eat out, until he got a bad experience which would force him to move on to the next one. He was the same with shoes and clothes. If he found something that fitted nicely, he would buy 5 more exactly the same! He could easily eat the same dinner day after day, after day if Kerry would let him. He loved pizza, fries, burgers, cheese steaks and of course ice cream, plus many other unhealthy foods and spent much of his adult life yo-yo dieting.

The family would like to thank Dr. Rubin and all the staff with Florida Cancer Specialists in Bonita Springs, for everything they did caring for David in those final months, despite the circumstances seeing the nurses and their kindness and positivity really helped brighten his spirits. They are truly very special people which Kerry and Victoria feel blessed to have in their lives.

David was a loving son, devoted husband and very proud father who was generous in nature, had great attention to detail and liked to treat people the way he liked to be treated.

David’s mother was unable to be here today, but she wrote a little heartfelt poem that Kerry and Victoria wanted to share with everyone, as it seemed very appropriate.

An Angel saw he was so tired,

No cure was going to be,

So she gently took him by the hand

and whispered, “Come with me.”

David will be deeply missed by many.