Hundreds gather in Swansea to bid farewell to Bonnie Tyler
A public farewell service was held in Swansea for singer Bonnie Tyler, who died in July aged 75 in Portugal. Hundreds of people, including visitors from Germany and Austria, watched the procession and the service broadcast on a screen in the square.
Church bells in Swansea fell silent on Monday as the coffin of singer Bonnie Tyler, born Gaynor Hopkins, was carried through the streets. The white coffin, covered in bouquets of white roses, was brought into Swansea Minster as onlookers called out farewells and broke into applause. Before the private service began, her songs If I Sing You a Love Song and It's a Heartache were played.
Tyler died in July at the age of 75 in a hospital in Portugal following a period of ill health. She and her husband split their time between a house overlooking Swansea Bay in Mumbles and a home in the Algarve. She is survived by her husband of 53 years, Robert Sullivan.
Mourners began gathering from 7.30am ahead of the noon service, bringing camping chairs and supplies. Some had travelled from as far as Germany and Austria. Many people who spoke about the day said they had personally met Tyler or her husband, or had encountered her around Swansea over the years.
Tyler grew up as one of six children in a musical family in the village of Skewen, near Swansea. According to Roger Bell, the talent scout who discovered her, she was a shy teenager who gained confidence after coming second in a talent competition at a local rugby club at age 17.
She achieved international fame in 1983 when Total Eclipse of the Heart topped the charts in both the UK and the US. Known for her distinctive husky voice, her other hits include Holding Out for a Hero, It's a Heartache and If You Were a Woman (and I Was a Man). She represented the UK at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest and continued touring, releasing music and doing charity work up until her death.
Wrapped in a Welsh flag, her coffin was taken in procession to her Mumbles home on Saturday, and after Monday's service travelled on to Skewen, the village where she grew up, for its final journey.
