Fans of Bonnie Tyler will be able to say a last goodbye next month, as her family invite the public to line the street when the singer returns home to Mumbles.
The star — Gaynor Sullivan, known to the world as Bonnie Tyler — died at a hospital in Portugal on 8 July, aged 75, two months after undergoing emergency surgery.
A funeral notice published by her family says she will return to her Mumbles home, Fernhill, at 3.30pm on Saturday 15 August.
Those who wish to pay their respects are invited to line Newton Road from 3.15pm.
A celebration of her life will be held at Swansea Minster — St Mary’s Church — at 12 noon on Monday 17 August.
Afterwards she will, in the words of the notice, “return to her hometown” — travelling through Skewen at about 1.20pm on the way to a private family service of committal and farewell.
Until then, she is resting at William Pressdee Funeralcare in Mumbles.
The notice, published under her married name Gaynor Sullivan MBE, remembers her as “a warm, generous artist whose music touched generations”.
It tells the story her fans know by heart: the girl born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen in June 1951 who rose from performances in local clubs to worldwide fame — her unmistakable raspy voice powering Total Eclipse of the Heart and Holding Out for a Hero into pop history.
The tribute notes the honours that followed — an MBE, Grammy nominations — but dwells longest on the person: a singer remembered for her warmth and generosity, whose ballads still fill dance floors and karaoke rooms the world over, decades after they were recorded.
She is survived by Robert, her husband of more than 50 years. The notice remembers her too as a dear sister, a much-loved sister-in-law, a cherished daughter of the late Glyndwr and Elsie Hopkins — and a devoted “Aunty Gaynor” to her nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews.
The family have asked for family flowers only, with donations invited instead to two charities of which she was a patron: Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales and Cerebral Palsy Cymru.
Donations can also be made through the online version of the notice at funeral-notices.co.uk.
Tributes poured in from across Wales and far beyond after her death, with Neath Port Talbot Council leading local tributes — 15 years after making her a Freewoman of the borough.
Among those mourning was Catherine Zeta-Jones, who revealed in her own tribute that the singer was family. “Bonnie was married to my cousin and has been such a part of my life,” the Swansea-born actress wrote — recalling that Tyler performed at her wedding to Michael Douglas in 2000.
The singer had been seriously ill since undergoing emergency surgery in Portugal in May, spending time in an induced coma before her family said in June she was out of the coma but “very unwell”, with her summer shows cancelled.
The notice ends by saying her legacy lives on in the songs that made her a legend.
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