A company director died after falling through his porch roof while taking down his outside Christmas decorations, it has emerged.
John Kershaw plummeted 10ft head-first onto the concrete floor below at 10.30am on Saturday.
He was found unconscious outside their home in Kidderminster, Worcs., by his wife’s son and was airlifted to Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth hospital but died of his injuries the next day.
His devastated wife, Wendy, 47, revealed yesterday she had begged her husband not to take the festive lights down because the roof was slippery but he insisted.
She said: “I told John not to go up on the roof but he said it was fine.
“It was a waiting game. They [the doctors] said we should prepare ourselves.
“My mum came down with all the family. He died and it had just started snowing.
“John loved the snow. He sent it to me.
“He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke and he didn’t deserve this.
“He was one of the best. He’ll never be forgotten. I still can’t believe he’s gone.
“He was so young. He was such a thoughtful and romantic man.
“He loved his Xbox. He was a very capable person and a real perfectionist.
“We are all very proud of him.
“He was well loved, a pillar of strength and he’d do anything for anybody.”
She added that she would remember her husband as a “thoughtful and romantic” man who was “like a second father” to her two children, Jonathan, aged 24, and Steven Doughty, 21.
John was director of Hillandale Caravans and holiday parks based in Stourport, Worcs.
His step-son Jonathan told how he watched John topple off the roof as he tripped over the guttering.
He said: “I was leaning out of the window at the time.
“My mum had asked him not to go out there at the time as it was cold and wet and a bit dangerous but he went.
“There’s an identical roof at the back that he’s up and down all the time and he was fine, it was just the wrong place at the wrong time.
“He was taking down rope lights which we have had up at Christmas for the last six years when he fell off.
“He slipped backwards and his foot caught the gutter which flipped him onto his back so his head took the full force of the fall.
“He had no broken bones at all, just the blow to the head. It was a tragic accident.
“If he had fallen a couple of feet either side his fall would have been broken by one of the cars.
“It’s hit us very very hard, you can’t describe how the family has reacted.
“He and my mum had been together for 11 years.
“He was the kindest, nicest man you could possibly have met, the things me and my brother put them through over the years you can’t describe and he was there with every step of the way.”