Couple married for 70 years die week apart

A couple who died exactly a week apart after both suffering heart attacks have been buried together at the church where they married 70 years ago.

Bert Barnsely died at 9am on March 18 and just 30 minutes later his wife Mary suffered a heart attack, the Mirror reports.

She passed away a week later at 9am on March 25.

The couple were laid to rest yesterday at the Holy Trinity Church in Cradley Heath, west of Birmingham, where they married on Christmas Day 1943.

Wedding bells rang as their twin coffins arrived at the church because the vicar refused to ring them when they married back in World War II as they were only used to warn of Nazi bombing raids.

"This is a day of celebration. You don't get couples like them anymore," Mr Barnsley's cousin Margaret Martin, 76, said at the funeral.

"They were all about family. It's so lovely to thing that they are now together forever."

The 93-year-olds were born two days apart in April 1920.

They married when they were 23 but didn't have any children.

"As they got older they would sit together and they shared a bed right up until the end," Keith Arnold, who is married to their niece, said.

"They would always hold hands and if they were ever apart they would always greet each other with lots of kisses and hugs – they wouldn't care who saw."

Source: Mirror
Author: Emily Crane, Approving editor: Matthew Henry