A celebrity personal trainer's life changed when his sister died six months after getting pregnant.
Anita Swan was 27 when she was diagnosed with a cancer rare in people under 40, after showing her younger brother Richie a lump on her stomach. She survived another five years with the slow-growing, blood cancer, even going into remission at one point, before dying aged 32 from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
Richie, originally from Maghull, told the ECHO Anita was a "strong minded" woman and the first person he came out as gay to aged 19, when he'd raked up a massive bill calling a man on the landline and couldn't hide his relationship any longer. So he ran off and left Anita with the task of breaking the news to their parents, who were fine with it.
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The pair always argued, "but if anyone else was to say anything, we'd go mad". Anita introduced Richie to Liverpool's gay scene with a trip to GBar on Eberle Street at a time when he was still too scared to go by himself.
Richie, now 42, came to his sister's aid when she needed a bone marrow transplant during cancer treatment and Richie was a match. He travelled to Hanover in Germany, where Anita lived, and lay in a bed hooked up to a machine for six hours so he could be her donor.
Anita stayed resilient throughout her time with cancer, even doing a trek in Borneo to raise £2,400 for children's charity Children Today. A personal trainer (PT) in the gym offered to help Anita prepare for the trek free, and Richie was inspired by how much the PT helped Anita feel better and stronger during her training and treatment.
Richie said: "He was great. We saw the difference in her, training while she was sick. She'd still go in, she'd crack on, and she went on this Borneo trek. It touched me that he was able to help someone, and I wanted to be able to do that for someone."
Despite the support she received, Anita's experience with cancer was hard. After being told she could never have a baby, Anita got pregnant, but she had to have a termination so she could continue with treatment without causing harm to her or the baby. Just six months later, she died.
Richie went into autopilot, making people tea and coffee, and woke up in the following days unable to speak, with tears streaming down his face. He felt that sadness for five years, but eventually he wanted a change in his life and decided to become a PT himself, instead of just going to the gym as a distraction.
At 35, he made the "scary" decision to leave his "stable job" to work from 6am to 10pm every day, building up his client base and starting spin classes. After a few years, Richie found his feet, twice winning Fitness Instructor of the Year at the Fit Pro Awards, and now running classes at Rise Fitness Studios on Smithdown Road.
A chance encounter with X Factor winner Alexandra Burke while she starred in The Bodyguard at the Empire Theatre started Richie on the path of training celebrities like her, Melanie B and Emma Bunton. Richie said: "I never had any expectation of myself to succeed, so that took a lot of pressure off and whatever I achieved was a bonus. It just turned out, luckily, I ended up finding what I was meant to be doing and what I excelled at."
He feels like his sister Anita is still guiding him, he said: "I just wish I could go back to my younger self and say, 'You know what, if you could see what's coming, you wouldn't believe it. It's more than you could ever envisage, times a million. Just keep plodding on, you're going to feel amazing'."
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