FORMER FIREFIGHTER RAY BAILEY, 68 FINANCIAL ADVISER DEAN MASON, 51

RAY’S death has left a hole in the hearts of his family and the community.

The larger-than-life 68-year-old from Ramsbottom, Lancs, died on January 15 after being taken to hospital 10 days earlier. Daughter Victoria Bailey, 44, says: “We’re all in shock, it happened so quickly. I hope his story helps to highlight how serious this is. “We can’t thank the ICU staff at Salford Royal enough, they’re the true heroes.” Ray, who in his spare time was the lead singer of a soul band, met the Queen during his fire service and retired in 2007. Victoria says: “I’m an

FALLING ill on March 22, and admitted to hospital a week later the dad of two was told he had a 50/50 chance of survival.

But, Dean, from Broxbourne, Herts, was just 51 when he passed away from Covid in April last year. His devastated sister Debbie White says the fact that so many more people have lost their lives since him means the Government has learned nothing from people like him having their lives so cruelly cut short. Debbie, also from Hertfordshire, says: “I feel angry. We feel let down. The Government should have locked us only child and all I keep hearing from everybody is how much of a father figure he was to so many people. He did so much for everybody, the family is all so proud of him.”

Relatives are devastated they cannot give Ray the send-off he deserves but hope one day to hold a festival in his memory.

“My dad was that well known there probably would be hundreds of people if everybody came,” Victoria laughs. “We’ll play him singing, have music and hopefully raise money for charity.”

Ray also leaves wife Angela after 50 years together and his sister Rosemary. down earlier, it may or may not have saved Dean but it would have saved others.

“I know that there are tens of thousands of other families going through what we went through and that is just heartbreaking.”

Eventually he was put into an induced coma and on a ventilator, but his organs started to fail and he passed away leaving wife Sue and sons William, 14, and 11-year-old Oliver.

“Dean was wonderful, a lovely, kind, family man,” Debbie says. “Anyone can read the statistics, but when you read the stories of the people who have died and their families left behind it brings it home how serious this is.”