The mother of Martyn Hett, a victim of the Manchester bomb attack, has said she is only now realising how her son “touched … so many lives” with his articles, videos and social media posts.
Figen Murray, speaking to ITV News at her home in Manchester with her husband and Hett’s stepfather, Stuart Murray, said that since her son’s death she had received an outpouring of condolences from his fans.
“Our inboxes in our phones, they have never stopped,” she said. “I’ve had over 600-700 messages, and often they start with: ‘You don’t know who I am; I’ve never met you or your son.’ But it’s all the influence he had on social media mainly.”
Hett, who worked as a PR manager, built a Twitter account with more than 13,000 followers, made popular YouTube videos - including one with more than half a million views - and wrote articles for magazines and newspapers that he described on his personal website as being about “strong women and low culture”.
The self-described Deirdre Barlow superfan had a tattoo of the Coronation Street character’s face on his leg, applied in an appearance on E4’s Tattoo Fixers. He then appeared on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme and Radio Five Live to explain his decision. “I just love how common she is,” Hett said. “A bit like me.”
He also had a winning turn on Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me.
His mother said: “I rang his boss to thank him for having given [Martyn] the opportunity to develop his skills when he was there and his boss cried and told me how much he was thought of by customers [who] contacted them, so he’s touched, even at work, so many lives.”
Hett’s brother, Dan, wrote in the Manchester Evening News on Friday about the tragic circumstances in which the family learned of his death and the support they had received from neighbours and strangers.
“On behalf of my family, I really just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has reached out,” he said. “We are tens of thousands of messages in, dozens and dozens of bunches of flowers and chocolates and teddies. We’re swamped at my mum’s house.
“I know a lot of people want some level of privacy during this type of thing but I think the manner in which Martyn lived, he was such a known figure, it’s quite fitting to who he was.”
Despite the family’s grief, Murray said that whenever she remembered her son it still brought a smile to her face. “When I think of Martyn, all I can think of is smiling, because I have so many fond and really funny memories - comical memories, him taking the mickey [out] of me - and all that is in my head.”
