OBITUARY: Fight Bladder Cancer founder Andrew Winterbottom

Andrew Winterbottom set up Chinnor-based Fight Bladder Cancer after he was diagnosed with the disease in 2009.

He will be remembered for his determined and courageous charity work and previously enjoyed a successful career as an architect.

Andrew Winterbottom was born on April 20, 1954 in Hull, to parents Lawrence and Doris. He had three siblings, Annie, Stephen and Janet.

His father died when he was just 12 and his mother remarried, bringing him four new half-brothers and sisters.

The family moved to Hertfordshire and Andrew set his sights on architecture, eventually studying for a diploma at Thames Polytechnic, now Greenwich University, from 1973 to 1981.

During his student days he helped design theatre and stage sets for rock band Pink Floyd and children's TV series The Clangers, among others, and set up his own practice in 1980.

In his early 20s, Mr Winterbottom married his first wife Hilary Mort, but they divorced soon after and he wed his second wife, Gina Burkit, in 1983. The couple had two children, Philip and Katie, born in 1984 and 1985 respectively, but divorced in 2008.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he worked for architectural firms including Varden, now Merlin Entertainments, and contributed to several notable projects in the capital, including the Sherlock Holmes Museum and The London Dungeon.

He later founded a firm called Saturn Projects and designed projects from sports centres to theme parks.

Mr Winterbottom met his third wife, Tracy Staskevich, while designing an Egyptian theme park.

The pair bought a house in Chinnor, before a doctor's appointment in 2009 revealed he had stage four bladder cancer, but his determination saw the couple co-found Fight Bladder Cancer that year.

Since then, the Chinnor-based charity has helped countless people and Mr Winterbottom launched Bladder Cancer Awareness Month, now an annual global event held each May. Closer to home, he and his wife opened The Wee Bookshop & Café in Chinnor in 2014.

The building sells donated items in aid of the charity and offers support to cancer patients.

He was popular in Chinnor and famed for his impressive collection of colourful shirts, while his global impact remained strong until the final months of his life.

After being given the all-clear from bladder cancer in January 2018, he was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer just nine months later and stepped down from managing the charity day-to-day.

He still made it to the inaugural World Bladder Cancer Patient Coalition, which he helped create, in Barcelona in March.

Just three days after returning he was rushed to hospital and died on May 31. He is survived by his wife Tracy and his two children.

His funeral is at 12.15pm on Saturday, June 22, at the Chilterns Crematorium in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. Guests are invited to wear bright clothes.

The Andrew Winterbottom Memorial Fund was created before his death and you can donate at fightbladdercancer.co.uk