We knew we had to get it done sooner than planned, so we got married on our 10 year anniversary of when we first got together, 16th of February, that was our first date after we met at the nightclub. It was so cold as you can imagine in February. 

Our wedding was beautiful. It was lockdown during the time we got married so we could only have two best women, her best friend and my best friend, and her mum and dad. Naomi’s dad started walking her down the aisle and then I came along and then he walked us both down the aisle to Beyoncé. It was beautiful.  

We got the dresses from the same shop but we visited the shop at different days. Neither of us knew what each other's dress would look like, and it was just like they were perfect matches.

Naomi proposed to me in 2012. She took me to a spa overnight, sent me downstairs and then called me up and she had petals all over the bed and proposed. We didn't decide to get married until 2019. She was diagnosed in 2020, diagnosed stage four, so it had already spread everywhere. It was just heartbreaking, really heartbreaking, and seeing her deteriorate was just horrific. 

Everyone at the Hospice has been fantastic, they treated us just like anyone else. There was no awkwardness in terms of our sexuality. 

Some people do find it awkward still if I say ‘oh my wife’, they just look at me as if to say that's a bit… 

Nai was very much out and proud, I've always been a little bit more reserved, and Nai wouldn't have been bothered in a ward environment at the Hospice. I think for me to show my affection might have been a little bit more... I think I would have shied away a little bit more if I was on a ward.

I’m a nurse myself so I know that as a whole, nurses, doctors, we don't have that prejudice, we accept people for who they are. Nai was the same, she worked in that sort of environment, she was always very passionate about her job; she was a child protection social worker. Hard job, but she fought for her children that she was working with. 

So I wasn't worried about prejudice going into the Hospice at all and Nai wasn’t either.

Debbie, our Hospice nurse, visited us at home quite a few times, she was fantastic. We went away for a couple of days and stayed in a treehouse in Kent. The bedroom had a glass ceiling so you looked up at the stars. It was beautiful. Nai was on a syringe driver so Debbie arranged for the district nurses from that area to come out while we were there. 

We couldn't do much because we were in lockdown and that was just the worst, having that diagnosis but also being restricted, not being able to go out. We managed to do two holidays in the Yorkshire Dales and then in Wales; there she really struggled. 

So we did a few things during lockdown, but we would have wanted to do a lot more.

We loved walking. One of our favourite places, and especially Nai’s favourite place, was the Yorkshire Dales. We had some lovely holidays like the Isle of Skye, and I love Wales, so we used to go there a lot. She got me into nature; bird watching we used to enjoy. We had lots of things in common. We liked travelling, mainly in Europe, we used to go the Greek islands.

Ronnie, our dog, knew she was ill. He's got a lot more protective over me since. I think dogs pick it up, they know when someone's ill, and I think he knew that she had died because he sleeps on the bed so when she had gone, he was licking her face... so yeah, he knew that she'd gone. 

Naomi was bubbly, fun loving, she could be quite feisty. She always wore her heart on her sleeve. If she didn't agree with something she would stick up for you, protect you. She was very loyal to her friends, her family. She loved her family to bits, loved her mum and dad to bits, she would do anything for them, and she would do anything for me, and the people she loved around her.

I'm just so proud of her. Even when she was ill and she was at the Hospice, she wanted to raise money for St Helena. She had a Go Fund Me page and while she was at the Hospice, she was taking pictures of herself and raised thousands of pounds through that. And then there were thousands more through the Hospice's Miles of Hope campaign too. She was always thinking about other people and what she could do to support. Nai was a special person, very special person. She just embraced life.