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Bonnie Tyler’s songs have echoed through her home town of Swansea in recent days in memory of the late singer, but on Monday the church bells stopped and wellwishers lining the streets fell silent as her coffin arrived for a service celebrating her life.
As the white coffin, covered in bouquets of white roses, was carried into the minster, shouts of “God bless you Bonnie” and “bye Bonnie” punctured the quiet. Those gathered to pay their respects burst into applause. Tyler’s If I Sing You a Love Song and It’s a Heartache played before the private service began, which mourners outside watched on a screen in nearby St David’s Square.
The Total Eclipse of the Heart singer, whose real name was Gaynor Hopkins, split her time between Mumbles, in a house overlooking Swansea Bay, and the Algarve. She died aged 75 in July in hospital in Portugal after a period of ill health and is survived by her husband of 53 years, Robert Sullivan.
The couple were well known in the area, and many people the Guardian spoke to on Monday had met Tyler or knew her personally. Mourners began arriving from 7.30am for the noon service, bringing camping chairs and supplies, with some having travelled from as far away as Germany and Austria.
“We went to a few parties at the Mumbles house, they were wonderful. There was karaoke, performances,” said Allyson Thomas, 58, whose partner played in a band with Tyler’s brother. “As we got in the taxi home, Bonnie handed us some champagne for the journey home. She was really special, she was so down to earth and a star at the same time.”
Tyler grew up as one of six children in a musical family in a council house in Skewen, a village north-east of Swansea. A “painfully shy” teenager, she started gaining confidence at 17 after singing and coming second in a local rugby club talent competition. “After that, she never looked back,” Roger Bell, the talent scout who discovered the singer, said in his tribute during Monday’s service.
Sandra Bartlett, 63, from nearby Port Talbot, said she knew Sullivan during his days as a Swansea nightclub manager, and her ex-husband had been friendly with the couple. “We went out to the first house she had in Portugal and they were great hosts,” she said.
“Gaynor was lovely, always ready for a chat or a gossip. She went from strength to strength as she got older, she was still performing a lot. I think it says a lot about her that she came home to Skewen. It’s not like she was from a big place like London or something. Now Bobby’s brought her home for the last time.”
The Cash family said they had met Tyler a few times in Swansea’s shopping centre and Debenhams, when the singer was out with her mother. “She never forgot where she came from and she was proud of where she’s from,” said Bill, 50, who had come to pay his respects with his wife, Jane, 49, and son Billy, 11.
Among several events in and around Swansea to mark Tyler’s passing, fans were invited to watch the procession as the singer’s coffin, wrapped in a Welsh flag, travelled to her home in Mumbles on Saturday, and again after the service at Swansea Minster as the hearse made its final journey to Tyler’s home village of Skewen.
One onlooker in Skewen said: “I wouldn’t come out for the king. Half the people here wouldn’t.”
The singer achieved international fame in 1983 when Total Eclipse of the Heart shot to the top of the charts in the UK and the US. Recognisable for her husky voice, Tyler’s 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 in the 2013 Eurovision song contest and was still touring internationally, releasing records and active in charity work before she died.
“I class myself as a working-class girl, and I’ve never stopped working,” Tyler told the Guardian in 2013. “I do an awful lot [of performances] because I feel other people would love to be offered what I’m offered.”
Ki Wodehouse, 26, from Clydach, said: “Bonnie was an amazing ambassador for Wales. Wales gets forgotten about even in the rest of the UK, so for someone from here to get that level of recognition is a rare thing.”
