HE has travelled from the other side of the world to give his brother an emotional final send-off.

Bill Brook has made the 10,500-mile journey from Australia back to the family home town of Eastleigh so he could scatter the ashes of his brother David "Dai" Brook.

"I came back to give him the send-off he deserves," said Bill, 69, who compares his brother to the character Greengrass in ITV's Heartbeat programme.

"He was the last real character in Eastleigh. A wheeler-dealer who everybody knew, and who always fought for what he believed in."

"I spread some ashes at his old land in Allbrook, and along the barge path through to Bishopstoke where we used to take our jam sandwiches and go fishing and swimming in the river when we were young," said Bill,

Seventy-year-old Dai, died in his sleep last month, and a service was held in the East Chapel of Southampton Crematorium. A former antique arms dealer, Dai Brook also served in Korea as part of his national service in the 1950s.

In March 1983, he made headlines in the Daily Echo as the "Luckiest Man Alive", after cheating death.

He had plunged 2,000 feet after his parachute didn't open properly in a charity plane jump.

"He went on a parachute jump with a group of friends for charity, but his parachute failed on him and his reserve chute didn't open properly either," said Bill.

"He landed in a freshly ploughed field and broke his back, but doctors put some steel rods in to straighten him up and he was fine."

"He was very lucky and managed to cheat death a couple of times," said Bill, from Woongarrah, in New South Wales, Australia.

Younger brother Bill has now taken his sibling's ashes on a final pilgrimage through Eastleigh, and spreading them around special places in and around the town.

Jim Sims of Eastleigh, a friend of Dai's for more than 35 years, said he was a one-off character in the town.

"If he could be annoying to anyone he would be.

"He loved to get one over on you, but there would never be any nastiness and we would all laugh about it afterwards."