'We were like brothers' - Blackpool club boss's tribute to Peter Stringfellow

Mike, who owns Home and HQ at Talbot Square, had the country’s first Stringfellow’s franchised Cabaret Of Angels table dancing venue in 1997, at the Bizness club in Springfield Road after approaching Peter about the opportunity.

“He was such a lovely man, and the most generous person you’d like to meet,” Mike said of his friend, who flew in from Majorca for his daughter Michelle’s wedding in Blackpool back in 2003.

In 2002, the close friends celebrated the opening of Syndicate, as Peter cut the ribbon and played the first record at the opening of the Nordwind’s Syndicate club.

“We lived next to each other in Majorca - Sandra and I were moving and Peter said the place next door to him was for sale.

"We were never out of each other’s houses and we became like brothers.

“He was as much an attraction at the London club as the girls were - we sat at his table many times, he invited us when big names were coming.”

Peter was treated for lung cancer in 2008 and kept it a secret until it was leaked in 2015.

The businessman, who had wanted to keep his illness private, died in the early hours of today after spending time in hospital, a spokesman said.

“We were the only people outside his family who knew he had cancer the first time, and again a year ago he rang and said ‘Mike, the cancer’s back,” Mike said. “We kept in touch every day and he told me it was terminal.

“I wanted to go and see him, but he wouldn’t let us - he said ‘I don’t want you to remember me like this’.

"We knew it was bad when he stopped texting a couple of weeks ago.”