“We were just a normal family. Phil went out to work and he never came home.”
Jane Sherriff had everything she wanted in life - a loving husband, two beautiful children, a fulfilling job and a happy home.
But in just a few fateful seconds in a London nightclub her world was turned upside down, when her partner was stabbed in the neck with a glass bottle.
Philip Sherriff, 37, from Scorton, near Garstang, died in hospital in April this year.
Now Jane wants to ensure tragedies like this become a thing of the past by campaigning to prevent late night bars and clubs from serving drinks in glass bottles.
She said: “Phil was stabbed in the left side of his neck. It severed his two main arteries.
“He lost five pints of blood very quickly. He received 12 units of blood in transfusion.
“He was taken to the Royal London Hospital where he immediately went into theatre and was given stitches to stop the bleeding.
“I didn’t find out for about 12 hours. By the time I found out they had realised the left side of his brain was swollen.
“He went into surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain, but when I got there the left side of his brain had died.
“The best case scenario would be that he would be paralysed down his right hand side. His brain continued to die over the next four days.
“It was a living hell.”
Jane stayed with her mum and an aunt in a hostel next to the hospital.
She said: “It was a sanctuary for us while we were there - it was just somewhere where we could sleep, even though there wasn’t much sleep going on.
“It was a case of sleeping for the odd hour, throwing up, crying, then starting again, and every day the prognosis got worse and worse.
“On the Sunday they said he had only two reflexes left and they were going to turn the life-support machine off. It was a medical decision.
“His body was ruined. When I first saw him, he wasn’t there. I knew his soul had gone as soon as I saw him - he was just an empty vessel.”
Jane said she was not sure how she had managed to cope with her loss.
She said: “I don’t know where the strength came from, but I have got a lot of it. It has been really dark, a really dark time.
“I’ve got amazing friends and family that have just been unbelievable.”
In the months that followed Jane began thinking about a campaign to promote replacing glass bottles with safe, plastic alternatives.
She was put in touch with Marjorie Golding, whose son was scarred for life in a glassing attack in 2004, and decided to team up with her.
She said: “The nightclub where Phil died had plastic cups, but glass bottles. Why was this?
“Marjorie started pushing a petition calling for a ban and mentioned that she had got me on board.
“A couple of friends saw it and I thought ‘if I don’t set up a Facebook page this will lose momentum’.”
The campaign has been re-tweeted on Twitter by celebrities including John Bishop and Stephen Fry, and supported by Jason Manford on Facebook.
The Facebook page now has more than 22,000 ‘likes’, while the petition has around 40,000 signatures.
Jane said: “We need to get 100,000 signatures on the petition for it to be considered by the government.
“We have 40,000 - Marjorie was on 30,000 and we have gone up 10,000 in two weeks.
“Once it has gone past 11pm, which is what I am asking for, you don’t care what you are drinking out of, whether it’s glass or plastic.
“It’s a case of a couple of pence more per bottle - that is all the plastic is compared to glass.
“It wouldn’t be an inconvenience for people and if it saves just one life it has to be worth it.”
Jane, an events coordinator for a photography training company working in Galgate and Burton in Kendal, said she had been signed off work since her husband’s death.
She said: “With the children, it’s hard knowing what is going on in their little heads.
“I’m still off sick because I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder. I have problems with concentrating, and eating and sleeping, so it might be a while yet.
“Life is so short and we don’t realise.
“I was following a path, thinking ‘this is my family, this is my life’ and all of a sudden it was changed and it was out of my control.
“This has to work because it is the only good thing that is going to come out of Phil’s death. It has to work.”
Visit www.facebook.com/bottlestopnow to find out more about the campaign or www.pop-campaign.co.uk to sign the petition.
Ashley Charles, 25, of Leicester, is due to stand trial at the Old Bailey on October 29 accused of Philip’s murder.
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