Mr Alford has had something else very special to celebrate recently as he has become a father. His wife, Jo, gave birth to their son Rex at 5.09 pm on Liberation Day. The baby was three weeks early and weighed

MIND and body coach Bryce Alford has reached the semi-final of the Britain’s Next Top Coach competition, which will be judged by members of the public voting online.

Bryce was in the top 12 of 57 entries after the first round and was then required to make a presentation before an audience of around 60 people, including other coaches.

The day of the presentation happened to be the day before he ran the London Marathon, so involved him in a five-hour round trip from London down to Cheltenham and back again before he ran the 26.2 miles.

This he did, dressed in a Superman costume, in a time of 3 hr 10 min. ‘It wasn’t ideal preparation for the marathon, but when things are out of your control, you have to do what you can,’ said Mr Alford, who is a qualified personal trainer, a master practitioner in NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and EFT (emotional freedom techniques).

Explaining his semi-final presentation, entitled Escape Velocity, Mr Alford said that it aimed to help people achieve success by getting rid of old thought patterns and behaviour. He has always aimed to fulfil his own potential in whatever he has done and is passionate about wanting to help others to achieve their goals.

This, he says, can vary from achieving greater confidence in something like public speaking, or just in daily life, to improving sporting performance, stopping smoking or losing weight.

Bryce has entered the health and fitness, and success and happiness sections of the competition. The online voting for the semi-final is now in progress and anyone wishing to vote for him should go to www.britainsnexttopcoach.tv/contestants/Bryce-Alford.

People are asked to judge the semi-finalists on their connection with the viewer, their expertise and insight. The deadline for voting is midnight on 26 June.