TODAY Martin Ithell should have been celebrating his 50th birthday with the woman he loved. Instead, his family are making preparations for his funeral.
Martin’s girlfriend Sarah Potbury, 36, had been looking forward to making a fuss of the man she had shared her world with for 10 years.
But now a tearful Sarah, who lived with Martin in Robinsons Croft, Great Boughton, is coming to terms with losing the love of her life.
“I’d tried to persuade him for 12 months to have a surprise party. But we were going to go out with friends on the Thursday night and then we were going to Mexico on Monday.”
Martin had grown up on his parents’ farm at Wervin with brother Jimmy. As he reached adulthood he tried his hand at different jobs including taxi driving, a paint balling business and he worked the doors at premises including The Oaklands in Hoole, The Moathouse, Room, Politic and Old Orleans.
Sarah says her partner was staunchly opposed to drugs and ‘cleaned up’ venues whenever there was a problem.
A hard worker by nature, he finished being a doorman about two years ago to spend more time with her.
He had been employed by a firm called North West Debt Recovery, involving mainly commercial work, and Sarah worries people will make false assumptions about a man they never knew.
“He was nothing like a bailiff. He’d never go into an old lady’s and start throwing the furniture out. He was fair with people. If they didn’t have the money then he made a payment plan with them. He was no bully-boy.
“His politeness and manner made people feel at ease.”
Sarah, who met Martin on a night out at Brannigans, said he was ‘fun-loving’ and a practical joker who ‘loved a wind-up’. And he was so popular, it made getting around a slow process.
“Chester will never be the same again. It was silly things like we couldn’t walk from The Cross to the Eastgate Clock without seeing half a dozen people. And he always had a big smile on his face.”
Brother Jimmy said his family was ‘very, very close’ and his 88-year-old mother is ‘devastated’. He acknowledges some people will be prejudiced about his brother, but added: “The only people who may think bad of him have not met him. Anyone who has met him will think good of him.”
Jimmy’s daughter Melissa, 22, said people might assume that doormen were hard-hearted but ‘half of them have been in tears’. And she jokingly recounted how Sarah had to take a day off work when her uncle Martin had to have inoculations because he was ‘scared of needles’.
