“My friend’s cancer diagnosis saved my life”
A man said his friend’s prostate cancer diagnosis saved his life – after he got checked out and discovered he had it too.
Rupert Crowfoot, 57, discovered he had the disease on December 27, 2023, after speaking to a friend about his prostate cancer diagnosis.
He underwent a successful operation to remove his prostate in February 2024.
But his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels continued to rise – which worried his doctors.
He then had a PET scan and was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in August 2024 and is about to undergo radiotherapy – to kill cancer.
Rupert, CEO of a physio company, from Maidenhead, Berkshire, said: “If I didn’t have that chat with my friend and go for a check-up – my outcome would have been much worse.
“I am very grateful that I had that conversation with my friend and he shared the information with me.
“I have since had the same conversation with a lot of my friends to share my experience.
“Men need to speak out about their health more – it is the biggest cancer killer for men.”
In October 2023, Rupert was having a conversation with his pal, James, who revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had his prostate removed.
Rupert said: “I had no symptoms whatsoever, my friend who had been living in Australia for 20 years had come to visit.
“He mentioned how he was previously diagnosed with prostate cancer and we got talking about it.
“It was on the back of that, I went to see my GP.”
Rupert had an appointment in October 2023 to have a blood and PSA test.
He also underwent an MRI scan and a biopsy and on December 27, 2023, Rupert was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Rupert said: “I was lucky as I felt like I knew it was coming, my consultant had been clear to say that he didn’t like the look of the results.
“The biopsy confirmed that for sure.
“But it is not something you want to hear.
“It is always a shock and a body blow, you always think it won’t happen to you.”
In February 2024, Rupert had an operation at Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, to remove his prostate.
After the operation, scan results showed that Rupert’s PSA levels had risen and he was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer in his spine in August 2024.
Dad of three, Rupert, said: “That was the toughest part if I am really honest.
“That call I took felt like a punch in the stomach because you think the prostate cancer diagnosis is the worst news you can get.
“You feel like you have dealt with it and then you find it has spread somewhere else – that was one of my lowest moments.”
Rupert is about to start radiotherapy, followed by six weeks of salvage radiotherapy – a cancer treatment for men who have had their prostate removed.
He said: “I am trying to remain positive and grateful for everything I can still do.
“I am not at the stage where I have lost my health but, I will get to that point and it will be very hard.
“I am trying to make the most of every day.
“It has certainly dialled things up, I am much more appreciative of life and I notice things a lot more.”
According to Prostate Cancer UK, one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
More than 52,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year on average.
Amy Rylance, Assistant Director of Health Improvement at Prostate Cancer UK, said: “We’re so sorry to hear about Rupert’s diagnosis of stage 4 prostate cancer, and we’re inspired by the energy with which he is living life with his diagnosis.
“It’s poignant to hear how his diagnosis meant he was able to start a conversation with his friend, who was then able to catch his own prostate cancer early and have lifesaving surgery.
“Rupert’s story illustrates just how important it is to talk about this disease, and who is at risk of it. 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer.
“We know that men over 50 — or over 45 if you’re Black or have a family history of prostate cancer — are all at higher risk of getting the disease.”
Eco-warrior family go litter picking daily – and even rope in their one-year-old
A family go litter-picking daily and start teaching their eco-warrior kids the ropes aged just ONE – so it becomes “a way of life”.
Mike Scotland, 33, began litter-picking in his 20s to help strengthen his mental health after experiencing suicidal thoughts.
The dad-of-three, from Aberdeen, Scotland, began spotting rubbish everywhere he went – so started going out with a grabber and bin bags to clear it up.
The heath and safety advisor eventually launched a local weekly group, Community Clean Up.
Mike began taking son, Lucio, now six, litter-picking when he was just one, and daughter Milania, now four, then followed suit.
Now Mike and his whole family – including partner Nikki Dalton, 34, a health and safety assurance manager, and their youngest daughter, Lexi, 16 months, take their litter-picking equipment out with them wherever they go.
Even little Lexi comes along on her tricycle – and Mike has no doubts she’ll take it up soon too.
Mike estimates they have picked up “thousands” of bin bags worth of waste as a family – and they have no plans to stop.
Mike said: “We pick up litter everywhere we go – when we go to the park, we pick up the rubbish we see before going to play.
“I recently took Lucio to football with Milania and we spotted some rubbish in the car park – we collected it all before Lucio went to play.
“People do thank us but the kids have always done it – they don’t really know why they’re being thanked.
“They know littering is the wrong thing to do and picking it up is the right thing to do.
“They don’t need an incentive or encouragement – it’s just our routine and a way of life for us.”
After struggling with his mental health, Mike found himself by the bank of the River Don in his hometown of Aberdeen in 2019.
He was surrounded by litter – and ready to take his own life – before luckily a well-timed incoming phone call snapped him out of it.
He said: “After that, whenever I’d walk past that area where I’d wanted to end my life, I felt like a dark shadow was haunting me.
“One day, I took three black bags and went down to the riverside and just started picking up litter.”
One day someone on a bike asked him what he was doing and ended up joining in.
The next day, Mike started the Community Clean Up group – and over the next few months, the group gathered weekly to clear the river of rubbish.
It became a passion for Mike – who loved doing his bit for the planet.
When he had children, he was quick to get them on board with it – and they took to it like naturals.
Mike said: “I remember taking my Lucio to the park when he was 18 months old, and he spotted an empty bottle of Lucozade.
“Even then, he went and picked it up and put it in the bin.
“Ever since then, he’s always done litter picking.
“One of the things we used to do as father and son was go out dressed as Batman and ‘fight the litter’.
“It’s a great way to get him outside and teach him about the environment.”
Now, all the family-of-five take their litter-picking equipment wherever they go, so they can step into action any moment.
Mike said he even keeps some of the things he finds on the floor – such as crisp packets from as far back as the 1960s.
He uses it to teach his children the importance of binning your waste – as “the choice you make today could affect someone in 60 years time.”
And he said by raising his children – even his youngest – with such an eco-conscious mindset means litter-picking is natural to them.
He said: “It’s a way of life for us and for them. It’s just our routine.
“Kids know what they’re not supposed to do, but if you tell a kid not to do something, it makes them want to do it – like littering.
“If you educate them on why littering isn’t good for the environment or animals, they understand the bigger picture.”
Train mad couple create stunning ‘station’ in their back garden
A train-mad couple has created a stunning ‘station’ in their back garden in tribute to their relatives who worked on the railways.
Richard Cantrell and Katherine Siggins spent around £4,000 adorning storage units and a seating area with pieces celebrating the ‘golden age’ of train travel in Britain.
Retail worker Richard, 51, whose grandad and great-grandad worked on the railways, started the project after buying a model train for Katherine for her birthday.
He went on to collect dozens of replica and original signs, posters and fixtures that would have been placed in local railway stations up until the 1950s and 60s.
Richard chose the since decommissioned London Midland Railway region’s maroon and cream colour scheme as it was the line his ancestors were employed on.
Richard said: “It’s a tribute to the golden age of railways.
“It came from the steam engine I bought Katherine and having a look on social media.
“My grandfather and great-grandfather worked on the Midland railway in Derbyshire.
“I wanted to celebrate their lives, and also, I’m into railway. So I came up with the idea of making a railway station in the garden.”
Richard bought Katherine the model of the 3F Jinty 16440 steam engine for her birthday in April 2022 to sit outside a grey shed he had purchased for £200.
She had ridden on the life-sized locomotive with her parents at the Midland Railway, Butterly, which had led to her love affair with trains.
Housekeeper Katherine, 49, said: “Me and my sister are actually known as the railway children, and we grew up with it.
“I feel like I’ve got steam in my blood, and it was a very big part of growing up.
“I used to ride on the footplate with my dad. Now you have to be 16 because of things that happened… and a valve exploded and I got oil in my hair
“I thought it was great. I wasn’t bothered. I was part of my favourite engine, in a way.”
Richard then kept adding to the arrangement, which sits in the back garden of their two-bed semi-detached property in Leabrooks, Derbys.
And the 10ft by 5ft seating area is now adorned with dozens signs from past and present stations in the beautiful Peak District.
There are also original notices and a fire bucket – which Richard sourced online – that were once used on station platforms.
A model of a blue Midland Pullman train also sits next to their shed, which is loved by their border beagle dog, Jess.
While hanging from the canopy of the impressive pergola is a replica of a clock that is present at the heritage Great Central Railway in Loughborough.
Richard said: “They have exactly the same clock, but much bigger. I looked into clocks at stations, and that design was from the 50s and 60s.”
On the side of the arrangement, the couple – who have five kids between them – have a bin shed where they have placed a ‘miniature ticket office’.
Katherine said their wider family now enjoyed paying visits to their home so they could look at the amazing display.
She added: “They love it, they want to do what we’re doing next.”
“I’m running to every station on the London Underground”
Meet the man running to every station on the London Underground – covering nearly 300 miles.
Harry Clough, who lives in Hammersmith, west London, is running the routes of every Tube line in a mammoth challenge for Movember.
He started with the Metropolitan Line (41.1 miles) at the end of October – and aims to finish with the Central Line (46 miles) at the beginning of December.
Harry, 26, is tackling the longer Tube routes on the weekends and the shorter ones before work – meaning he often has to leave home at 4am.
He’s added a bit of fun to the runs by dressing up – wearing a Father Christmas outfit for the Piccadilly Line and a Mario costume for the Hammersmith and City Line.
Harry is tackling the challenge to raise money for the charity Movember, in the hopes of encouraging men to talk about their mental health.
He explained that he has struggled with mental health for most of his life and has always wanted to help others – especially after a friend on his rugby team sadly committed suicide during the pandemic.
Harry said: “I started running properly in 2023 when I set myself a challenge of running 12 half marathons in 12 months.
“Then this year, I set myself another challenge of running 30 half marathons, four marathons, and two ultra marathons – which I finished a couple months ago.
“So I wanted a new challenge. I was speaking to my housemate and we remembered that a friend had previously run the Victoria Line.
“So he just said to me, ‘Why don’t you run all of them?’ And that was that.”
Harry, who works for teen health app Luna, said he’s enjoying the experience so far – even if it’s a lot of hard work.
He said: “It’s been going well. It’s intense though – mainly because I live so far from some of the Tube endpoints so just getting there can take an hour and a half.
“When I started and I did the Metropolitan Line, which is really long, I did think, ‘What have I got myself into?’
“But now I’ve gotten into the swing of things.
“It’s been fun, especially when I’ve dressed up.
“I did get some weird looks in Heathrow Terminal 5 when I was dressed as Father Christmas, though.
“When I was dressed as Mario, I mainly just got comments from kids and builders.”
Discussing why he chose to support Movember, Harry said: “I’ve struggled with mental health my whole life so it’s always been a personal thing for me that I want to help other people.
“Sadly, a friend in my rugby club took his life during Covid, so we’ve all been doing a push to support mental health.
“I think everyone has a connection to mental health and it’s such an impactful charity – so I wanted to support them.”
So far, Harry has completed the Metropolitan, Northern, Hammersmith and City, Victoria, Circle, Piccadilly, and Bakerloo lines.
He has already raised nearly £2,500.
You can donate to his page here: https://movember.com/m/14165262?mc=1
“I was forced to put two kids up for adoption because I can’t afford to raise them”
A single mom has told how she made the heartbreaking decision to put up two of her kids for adoption – because she couldn’t afford to raise them on her own.
“The feeling of giving a child up for adoption is hurt,” Hannah Martin, 32, from Waymart, Pennsylvania, shares.
“It’s traumatic. It’s very heartbreaking, but at the same time, it’s heartwarming because you’re doing the right thing.”
Hannah, now a stay-at-home mom with a 15-year-old son, an eight-year-old daughter, and a six-year-old son, recalls placing a little girl named Adriana up for adoption in 2011.
Then just 19, Hannah says she was “excited but scared” when she found out she was expecting.
“I got pregnant by one of my brother’s friends because we ended up just hooking up, being young and dumb,” says Hannah, noting she was using birth control pills but not a condom.
Although Adriana’s birth was unplanned, the decision to place her for adoption was one that weighed heavily on her heart.
“I kept her for about, I want to say a month and a half, and I couldn’t do it.
“The father refused to help me.
“He said it wasn’t his child.
“He apologized to me and he said he couldn’t do it,” she shares.
“So I said, ‘Okay, I have no choice but to find somebody that wants to have a family.”
She was helped by Maria, a lawyer from Miami, who became a guiding light for her after they met as someone to “vent to and have somebody that genuinely cared.”
“She was like another mother to me, and she helped me through all of this. She got me therapy and whatever I needed to make this okay.
“I just needed somebody to tell me that it was okay that I was doing the right thing by giving this little girl the life that she deserves.”
With the help of Maria, who was working through the state of Florida to place kids in foster care, Hannah signed papers to give Adriana up for adoption.
“It was agonizing, but I felt they were going to a better place,” she says.
Her second adopted child, Tyler, was born in 2013, when Hannah was 21, and she was living in Alabama.
She says she got pregnant again despite using the Depo-Provera shot, but didn’t have an abortion.
“I don’t believe in killing babies,” she says, noting she believed it would be different this time because she was in a relationship with Tyler’s father.
Tyler’s father, initially present, soon proved unable to provide the support she desperately needed.
“I thought that this man was giving me attention, and sleeping with me, so perhaps he loves me, but I was completely wrong,” she admits.
The father’s drug addiction eventually created an insurmountable barrier to raising a family. Hannah says she wasn’t doing drugs.
“I thought that this one was going to work out because the father was actually with me, and I thought he would be all on board about this, but it turns out he’d rather do drugs and party,” she says.
Compounding the situation was her father’s refusal to help.
“My father was unsupportive. I called Maria, crying, telling her I can’t do this. I made another mistake.”
Though heart-wrenching, Maria again came to the rescue. She helped her find a couple who could offer Tyler the life he deserved, at only a few months old.
To this day, Hannah hasn’t heard from either child and doesn’t know if they kept Adriana and Tyler as their names.
“I don’t even think they know about me,” she says, noting she only received one picture of Adriana through Maria.
The emotional toll of placing both of her children for adoption still troubles her.
“It was very hard. I went through a bad part when that happened because I have depression. When sadness and everything hits me, I’m pretty much stuck,” she says.
Despite the grief, Hannah holds onto the belief that she made the right choice for her children.
“If I had to change everything, I would have kept them, but I was struggling, really young, and I didn’t have help. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t know how to get on housing or food stamps or anything that could have helped me and my children at the time.”
Her other three children had a relatively normal childhood.
Joshua, her first son, was born in 2009. Brooke, her other daughter, was born in 2016. Two years later, a third son named Brandon Jr. came along.
Hannah notes Brooke and Brandon Jr.’s father is supportive and she had more means to support Joshua during his childhood because she was working as an assistant manager at McDonald’s.
Now she has gained a deeper understanding of the importance of support and stability for her children, she said.
“I am doing this by myself. I am definitely grateful that I have my children,” she says.
Reflecting on Adriana and Tyler, she expresses her desire to reconnect.
“I’ve tried to look up the people that did adopt them, but there’s no luck there. I just want to see a picture of them. That’s all I wanted,” she says.
“I’m hoping one day and praying that my children will try to come find me,” Hannah states.
“They’re going to have to know the truth one day or another, especially because they’re going to understand.
“If they’re trying to go to the doctors and figure out family history, well, guess what? They’re going to have to come ask me stuff.”
Her message to others considering adoption is clear: “There’s always that what if, and I want to help others understand that there are options beyond abortion, like giving a child to someone who can’t have children of their own. It’s the best gift ever.”
Man plays guitar during eight-hour brain operation
A man stayed awake during an eight-hour operation on his brain – and played the guitar.
Colin Miller, 64, strummed chords on his acoustic while going under the knife at King’s College Hospital in London.
He was diagnosed with a life-limiting glioblastoma (GBM) in October 2023 after the left side of his face went into spasm on his way from a holiday in Cyprus.
The amateur musician, who spent four decades working as an IT consultant, had an operation just over a year ago to remove the golf-ball sized tumour on his brain.
When given the option, Mr Miller, from Herne Bay, Kent, decided to stay awake and play guitar throughout the surgery.
He said: “I was given a choice of being awake or asleep for the procedure.
“The doctor questioned how I use motor movements on my left side, and I told him I play the guitar.
“So not to lose mobility in my hand and fingers, they asked me to bring in my guitar and I was woken up part way through my surgery and played different tunes.
“I couldn’t process playing any familiar songs but strummed chords. The whole experience was fascinating.”
Mr Miller has since had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and is now monitored with scans.
It’s only recently that he has been able to return to playing with the Herne Bay Baptist Church band, occasionally singing.
He added: “Speaking and singing are two different skills. My brain takes a while to process during conversations but when I’m singing, I can perform the lyrics well.”
Now, the musician is fundraising to help find a cure for other brain tumour patients on a month-long challenge to raise awareness of the disease.
Mr Miller is over halfway through the 99 Miles in November challenge in aid of Brain Tumour Research – having walked 65 miles so far.
He added: “I’ve always been keen on walking and for this challenge I have a spreadsheet of all my walks so far, and I’m averaging six miles each day.
“I had to give up my driving license, but I can still move my body, and I feel blessed to be able to do so in support of the brain tumour community.
“I’ve been struck with emotion upon reading the stories shared amongst the group on Facebook.
“I truly believe that investing into research will lead us to finding kinder treatments and eventually a cure for this devastating disease.”
Charlie Allsebrook, community development manager at Brain Tumour Research, said: “Colin’s story is a reminder that brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age.
“We’re grateful to Colin for sharing his story including an insight into his diagnosis we often don’t see.
“Colin is generous in both sharing his story and giving his time to walking throughout the whole of November. We’d like to wish him well with his ongoing scans and for the rest of his challenge.”
You can donate here: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Colin1729103220048.
Couple’s anger after blunder lists baby daughter as a boy on birth certificate
A young couple say they fear their newborn daughter will be mistaken as transgender – after the wrong sex was put on her birth certificate.
Proud parents Grace Bingham, 20, and her partner Ewan Murray, 21, were overjoyed when they welcomed little Lilah into the world on October 8.
But when they came to register the birth five weeks later they were shocked to discover she had been listed as male on her birth certificate due to a blunder.
Grace admitted she reviewed the certificate at the time but overlooked the mistake and signed it, attributing her oversight to a lack of sleep as first-time mum.
But they have so far been unable to amend the error on five-week-old Lilah’s records – despite getting in touch with national registration bosses.
Grace, of Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts., said: “It’s been a nightmare and I’ve not stopped crying since.
“As first-time parents, we were very excited and, admittedly, a bit overwhelmed – especially due to the lack of sleep.
“We focused on ensuring that all the names were spelled correctly and didn’t expect such a professional error to happen.
“At the moment our newborn daughter is a male according to the government. I don’t have a son, I have a daughter.
“This could cause significant issues for our daughter throughout her life, as it would imply she is transgender when she is biologically female.
“If she chooses to identify differently later in life, that is her decision. But at just five weeks old, she cannot make that choice.
“It’s unfair for her birth certificate to say male, which could negatively impact her in various aspects of life, such as school, jobs, and relationships – due to a mistake that is not her fault.
“We feel wronged by the system regarding this error, and the only way to properly address it seems to be by bringing it to parliament’s attention.
“What will happen when she applies for a passport, or a job and gets married?
“We do not feel like we’ve been treated fairly. She’s been failed by the system already and she’s only a few weeks old. I’m devastated.”
The mistake happened when the pair went to register Lilah’s birth at Sutton-in-Ashfield Registration Office in Nottinghamshire last Wednesday (13/11).
Grace and Ewan were informed that in order to rectify the mistake, they would need to pay £99.
Grace said she is concerned even after correcting the error, the birth certificate would still list Lilah as male, with a small note indicating the sex was changed to female.
The couple have since been trying to contact Nottinghamshire Register Offices and the General Register Office to no avail.
They have also got in touch with Ashfield MP Lee Anderson for assistance.
Extreme cleaners reveal pictures of biggest ever challenge clearing home of hoarder
A team of extreme cleaners have revealed pictures of one of their biggest ever challenges – clearing the home of a chronic hoarder.
Aftermath Scotland don biohazard suits to tackle jobs like crime scenes, drug dens – and people who amass clutter.
Video and images show a recent job at a home packed to the walls and ceilings with piles of objects – most people would throw away.
There are stockpiles of canned food, cleaning products, magazines and toilet rolls filling the property, piling to the ceilings in rooms that took five weeks to clear.
With the family’s permission, the team have shared photos and videos from inside the home, which they say was one of their most challenging jobs.
The firm began when Andrew Irvine, and his friend David Johnston-Oates, noticed that there was a lack of extreme cleaning services in rural Scotland.
A recent job in Aberdeen involved an unattended death.
The deceased had also become a hoarder, not know to to their family, who lived in Manchester.
With the family’s permission, the team have shared photos and videos from inside the home, which they say was one of their most challenging jobs.
”Initially, it was an unattended death, but when we got in there, we realised there was a hoarding situation as well,” Andrew said.
“After the unattended death was sorted, we went in again to help the family with the hoarding situation and the cleaning.
“We built that rapport with the family and helped get some of the person’s belongings moved down for them.”
David added: “It can be nerve-wracking.
”We know what we were doing, and we knew that we were trained, but when your masks are on and you’re in there, it can be quite difficult to communicate with each other.
“It took the fire service and the undertaker a full half day to remove the deceased from that property because they had to clear a path through the belongings. It was so severe.
“We worked on that hoarding every single day for about five weeks. In this unattended death, the deceased had been hoarding food.
“I think it was partly because of all the scaremongering during COVID – the fridge was filled with food from 2020, and the cupboards were full of toilet rolls, that sort of thing.
“For the families, it all makes sense eventually. Normally, the person that’s hoarding won’t want people to come to their house, so they’ll arrange to meet in other places.
“The family did see the deceased quite a lot, but they always met outside the home.
“Hoarders tend to hide it very well, so they don’t like people visiting their property and can be quite reclusive. Even neighbours don’t tend to notice.
“Nobody really knows the severity of it until they get inside the house.”
David and Andrew deal with many extreme cleaning scenarios, including crime scenes, hoards, drug dens, and hotels.
However, they believe that being able to relieve some of the burden of a grieving family makes the job worthwhile.
“A straightforward unattended death can take a few hours to clean, depending on the severity and how long they’ve been there for,” David said.
“A normal unattended death will always be done on that day.
“Drug dens can take days, because you have to be so meticulous. They can be dangerous situations, because if a drug user has maybe been evicted, they can set traps in the property.
“A normal hoard, when someone’s suffering from poor mental health, we go at their pace. We might go in one day a week for a month, or two days every couple of weeks, and we do it gradually.
“The last thing we want to do is cause any added stress to the person that’s suffering, so it’s all about working with them to do it at their pace.
“I think the most challenging part is seeing what the families are going through, and the trauma.
“We’ve got to be professional, but it’s normally after the job is complete that we’ll reflect on it and talk about it.
“But the appreciation makes it worth it. It’s so rewarding to be able to take that pressure off grieving families or people suffering from mental illness.”
Andrew added: “It’s amazing to see people improve over time as well.
“When we sort a hoarding situation, and a person is able to enjoy their home again, seeing the change in that person is amazing.”
“I rekindled my holiday romance and got married – 10 years later”
A woman who fell in love on holiday rekindled the relationship and got married to her fling – 10 years later.
Club promoter Zoe Shepherd-Scott, 33, was working in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, giving out shots, when she first met Michael Shepherd-Scott, 33, who was on a lads holiday in 2012.
The pair sparked a ‘holiday romance’ and met several times during his trip.
Zoe even made a passing comment to a friend about Michael – claiming she had met the man she’ll ”marry one day”.
Michael returned to Leeds, Yorkshire, after a week, and Zoe flew back to the UK a few months later to start a course at University in Bournemouth, Dorset.
Five years later, Zoe sent a drunken message to Michael and to her surprise and the connection was “still there”.
The pair renewed their romance and Zoe left her job as an Emirates air steward and moved to Leeds, to be with Michael.
The went on tie the knot in May 2022, 10 years after they first met on holiday, and recently welcomed their son, Leo, in February 2023.
Zoe, a content creator, from Leeds, Yorkshire, said: “When I met Michael, I remember saying to my friend, ‘I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.’
“During that holiday, he said the same thing to his mates about me.
“I never in a million years imagined I’d actually marry him 10 years later.
“Despite losing contact, the connection was still there.
“It’s not all been plain sailing, but I’m so glad I followed my heart.”
Zoe was working as a promotor in Cyprus during the summer of 2012, while taking a gap year before starting university.
Michael was on a lad’s holiday when he first crossed paths with Zoe.
She said: “We met when I was encouraging them to come in for shots.
“I don’t remember what we spoke about, but I remember how he made me feel.
“There was an immediate connection, and I had this gut feeling about us.”
During Michael’s weeklong trip, they met up several times for dates on the Island.
They exchanged numbers and continued messaging when Michael returned home a week later.
Zoe flew back the UK in September 2012, ready to start university.
She said: “We were both in very different places in life.
“He was focused on his career, and I was about to start my course.
“We ended up drift apart, but we kept liking each other’s photos on Facebook.”
Five years later, in 2019, Zoe had just gone through a break-up when she met with a friend.
They started discussing past relationship, and her friend reminded her of “Michael from holiday”.
“We had a few bottles of wine, and I looked him up online,” she said.
“He had two children but was also single.
“I genuinely wasn’t expecting anything to come from it, but I sent a drunk message to see how he was doing.
“It was like no time had passed.
“We immediately hit it off again.”
Zoe, who was working as an air steward at the time, ended up leaving her job and moving to Yorkshire to live with Michael in 2020.
The pair were hit with lockdown but despite the difficult circumstances, they made it work.
She said: “It was definitely tough at times – I moved my entire life there.
“I never expected to become a stepmum.
“But we took it all slowly, and the kids were so welcoming.
“Through all of it, Michael was so loving and supportive.
“I knew I had made the right decision.”
During a trip to Greece in September 2020, Michael proposed to Zoe and they started planning the wedding.
They tied the knot two years later in Athens, Greece, in May 2022, with 55 close family and friends.
“We met near Greece, so it’s always been very special to us,” she said.
“The proposal was perfect, and it really cemented my feelings that I’d made the right decision.
“It was such a magical wedding.”
In 2023, the couple were overjoyed to welcome their son Leo, 20-months-old.
Zoe said: “We’ve got through difficult times, but throughout all of it I’ve had Michael by my side.
“Things might not always be the fairy-tale you envision, but if put in the work it could be so much better.”
Peaky Blinders superfan says he gets mobbed by fans mistaking him for Tom Hardy
Meet the Peaky Blinders superfan who bears a striking resemblance to Tom Hardy’s character and says he’s regularly mobbed by fans mistaking him for the star.
Aron Walker, 37, is a huge fan of the BBC drama and started donning a flat cap, long coat and full beard – to look like his favourite character, Alfie Solomon, played by Tom Hardy.
Aron didn’t initially see the resemblance but says strangers came up to him in the street mistaking him for the star.
He says he and his friends – who also dress up as characters from the show – even infiltrated the Peaky Blinders set in Castle field, Manchester, in June, 2022 causing confusion.
Aron’s friend, Scott Blowers, 50, an installation manager, is also often mistaken for Tommy Shelby – played by Cillian Murphy – and his other pal, Steve Pritchard, 42, a Truck Driver, is the spitting image of Arthur Shelby, played by Paul Anderson.
Aron has even turned being a doppelgänger into a career and has once earned £600 working as a performer where he does meet and greets as well as working behind the bar.
Aron, a barman, from Liverpool, Merseyside, said: “What we’ve done is finding the best of the best of people that look like characters from the show.
“You also have got to make sure they are right person for the job.
“The job we do, and we never take it too seriously, it’s all about having fun as well.
“It’s important to get things exactly right. The better the costume, the better it’s going to look and when we are entertaining the crowd which is brilliant.”
In June, 2022, Aron and his crew were heading for a photoshoot at the same time as the Peaky Blinders were filming in the area of Castle field, Manchester.
These security guards mistaken them for the main characters and let them through on set which caused disruption with the fans.
Aron said: “It was very surreal, and we went down for a photoshoot round the area where they were filming. As we were walking up and the securities looked at us and waved us straight in and we had the free run of the set.
“There was big piles of coal and Shelby signs everywhere and it was so cool. We were there for an hour and a half, and we looked on social media and people were saying the peaky blinders of us on Twitter, and we went viral.
“There was about 250 people following which I didn’t really like too much.”
Along Aron’s journey he has also been gifted some accessories that he can use when he goes to these events.
He has been gifted shoes from Loake as well as rings and he even an Alistair Cook long coat which is a prominent outfit in the series.
Aron’s career kickstarted in the Peaky Blinders bar in Liverpool where he was spotted as a really good Alfie Solomon’s. Next he then opened the Peaky Blinders bar in Manchester and the rest is history.
Aron said: “We did bar work and then between that we did private events over in Benidorm and done cruises over in Amsterdam and done Peaky blinder nights at a gold club on the Isle of white.
“There is always something to do and It’s something I’ve done for quite a while but I do enjoy it, If I wasn’t enjoying it, I would’ve stopped doing it.”
