Matt Moir and Jackie Lewis-Bayton

FOUR days before their wedding, Matt Moir and Jackie Lewis-Bayton’s lives changed forever.

As Jackie was preparing to pick up her wedding dress, she suffered a bleed on the brain.

Describing the events of that evening in November 2018, Mr Moir said: “She was at home with her sister at the time and she got a really bad headache and became disoriented. It came on very quickly, so her sister took her up to A&E at the Whittington, and they then transferred her over to the neurological hospital at Russell Square.”

Mr Moir had been out celebrating the beginning of his holiday from work – in preparation for his wedding, due to be held at Islington Town Hall – when he got the call from Jackie’s sister telling him to come to the hospital.

“I was devastated. They didn’t think she was going to last the night,” he said.

Jackie, a mental health nurse at St Pancras Hospital, was seriously unwell. But a procedure called coiling initially appeared to have had an impact and she was “a bit confused, but she was talking,” Mr Moir said.

Tragically, this hope wasn’t to last.

The couple before their lives changed

“We kind of hoped that she would make a reasonable recovery. But unfortunately, four days after that she suffered a second bleed, and that did it,” said Mr Moir, a King’s Cross station London Underground worker added.

“Before it happened we were very happy. We were making a lot of plans to basically grow old together.”

Instead, aged just 48, Jackie was left in a semi-vegetative state.

After spending more than nine months in hospital Jackie, who had lived with Mr Moir at their home in Holloway, was moved to the Bridgeside Lodge Care Home in Wharf Road, near Old Street. Five years on, Mr Moir visits her every day.

Even though he cannot be sure she recognises him, he says it is what he sees himself doing “for ever”.

“The way I look at it is when you are married – we were engaged to be married – that’s what anyone should do,” he said.

“If it was the other way around, Jackie would be doing it for me. I know it’s a big commitment and lots of people have said to me that probably some people may have walked away or moved on, but no, my commitment is 100 per cent to help.”

The Spitz playing at the bedside

While she cannot currently communicate beyond facial expressions, techniques are being explored to help her “take back control over her life,” including a thumb-clicker and picture cards. Mr Moir’s ultimate dream is to give her back the opportunity to one day be able to say “I do”.

One of the key therapies that has helped Jackie on her slow path to recovery, he says, is the live music that The Spitz bring to the 64 people at Bridgeside Lodge each week. The charity also visits Great Ormond Street Hospital weekly, where around 20 children and their families also enjoy the musicians.

Mr Moir and Jackie met at a Paul Weller concert in the 1990s – although their friendship only turned romantic in 2016 – and music has always played a major role in their relationship.

Award-winning guitar player Marcus Bonfanti

“It has massively helped with her rehabilitation and her progress because it’s helping her to engage with the outside world,” he said.

“I can’t really say how much I appreciate what The Spitz have done.”

Award-winning blues musician Marcus Bonfanti, who once opened for Chuck Berry and is the frontman for the 1960s band Ten Years After, describes the work he does with The Spitz as something “incredible”.

“It’s just so important to me,” he said. “I’m supposed to be on tour in France at the moment but I came back yesterday, because we had three days off, and the option was ‘Would you like to come back to London for three days or stay in France for three days?’ For me, it was a no-brainer – rather than sitting around in France, I get so much more out of this.”

The Spitz, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has launched a crowdfunder after losing 90 per cent of its funding in the past year due to the cost of living crisis and larger trusts and foundations having smaller pots of money to share around. It needs roughly £150,000 annually to continue into “the next 10 years,” and is currently working with just £12,000.

• Visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-next-ten-years for more information.