There aren’t many villages where you can walk into a jewellers, a hardware shop, or a cafe, and hear stories about one of the world’s biggest music icons.
But in Mumbles, Swansea, Bonnie Tyler was never treated like a superstar.
To many local people, she was Gaynor Sullivan, or “Gaynor who lived up the road”.
The Total Eclipse of the Heart singer, who died in July aged 75, would often be seen doing her shopping or having a drink with friends.
On Wednesday it seemed only fitting that the iconic song could be heard playing throughout the village as the biggest partial solar eclipse in nearly three decades took place, with Spotify streams of it almost doubling.
As locals prepare to say goodbye to Tyler, who split her time between the Mumbles and a home in Portugal, it’s ordinary moments that people seem to remember most.
On Saturday, hundreds of people are expected to line the streets of Newton Road to pay their respects, as Tyler’s coffin makes its way through the village to her home on Mumbles Road.
A service will then be held in St Mary’s Church in Swansea city centre on Monday, for family and invited guests, before the cortege makes its way to her birthplace of Skewen, Neath Port Talbot.
