{"id":740266,"date":"2026-08-16T23:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740266\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T23:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:44:11","slug":"bonnie-tylers-hometown-prepares-for-final-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/740266\/","title":{"rendered":"Bonnie Tyler’s hometown prepares for final goodbye"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans are set to gather in Swansea on Monday ahead of a church service held as part of the legendary singer’s celebration of life.<\/p>\n

It comes after huge crowds of emotional fans lined the streets in the coastal suburb of Mumbles<\/a> on Saturday as her coffin – draped in a Welsh flag – was driven through the place she called home.<\/p>\n

As the procession began, Total Eclipse of the Heart could be heard playing on the busy street, as crying fans broke into applause.<\/p>\n

The singer died “unexpectedly” on 8 July<\/a>, aged 75, at a hospital in Portugal.<\/p>\n

Despite Tyler’s career taking her all over the world, she has been described by those living in Mumbles<\/a> as a “Swansea girl through and through”, and someone who “never forgot where she came from”.<\/p>\n

Monday’s service for family and invited guests will be held at St Mary’s Church, Swansea, and will be live streamed on the star’s official website<\/a>, with fans also able to watch it on screens outside.<\/p>\n

The cortege will then travel to Skewen, Neath Port Talbot, where Tyler was born and grew up, arriving in the village for a private family service.<\/p>\n

There will be a heavy emphasis on Tyler’s Welsh identity, with an organist playing music from Welsh legends before the service starts – with songs from Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Tyler herself. <\/p>\n

Choir Only Men Aloud will sing her huge hit Total Eclipse of the Heart and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, while the congregation will sing hymn Calon Lan. <\/p>\n

The exit music will be a song that was close to Tyler’s heart – Mary Hopkin’s 1969 hit Those Were The Days. <\/p>\n

She performed it at a local talent contest in Skewen when she was young. <\/p>\n

As the two singers were from the same area, Tyler, whose real name was Gaynor Hopkins, would later change her name to avoid confusion with Hopkin. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of Bonnie Tyler fans are set to gather in Swansea on Monday ahead of a church service…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-740266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}