The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Dying Fife bride has ‘beautiful’ hospice wedding
KIRKCALDY: Couple have been together for 17 years
A terminally ill bride has thanked staff at a Fife hospice for giving her a “beautiful” wedding day.
Cancer patient Janet, 73, and George Brown, 61, pictured, tied the knot at Victoria Hospice in Kirkcaldy with nurses acting as witnesses.
The couple have been together for 17 years and George decided to waste no more time and propose after Janet’s diagnosis.
“It was a beautiful day,” said Mrs Brown. “We had been together all those years and just decided to get married, with me having this illness. It’s incurable.
“I’ve come to terms with that. I had a beautiful day and it was magic.”
A Fife hospice patient has paid tribute to NHS staff who made her “beautiful” wedding day a reality.
Terminally ill Janet, 73, married George Brown, 61, in an emotional ceremony at Victoria Hospice in Kirkcaldy on Monday.
The couple, who have been together for 17 years, decided to waste no more time and tie the knot after Mrs Brown was diagnosed with lung and bone cancer.
“It was a beautiful day,” said Mrs
Brown.
“We had been together all those years and just decided to get married, with me having this illness. It’s incurable.
“I’ve come to terms with that. I had a beautiful day and it was magic.”
Mrs Brown’s son was best man and two nurses acted as witnesses during the ceremony, which was organised at short notice.
“The hospice did well. They were really brilliant,” she added.
Mr Brown said before Mrs Brown’s diagnosis he had not proposed because he thought “why fix it if it’s not broken?”
He said: “Then it was broken so I thought this was my way of trying to fix it.
“It was one of the happiest days of my life and one of the saddest days of my life.
“Marriage is supposed to be a happy time, but there’s the other side of the coin that we have to face up to.”
He added: “She’s fighting a good fight.”
The couple, who are both from Kirkcaldy, met 30 years ago.
Romance blossomed after Mr Brown, who was a taxi driver at the time, drove past his future wife in the street, and she looked upset.
“I was driving a taxi one night and I saw Janet walking down the road,” he said.
“I stopped the taxi and said ‘are you all right?’
“She said she was looking for a church. I said I would drop her off and she said she had no money. I said ‘don’t worry about the money’.
“I dropped her off and didn’t see her again for a few weeks. Then I got her phone number from her daughter and gave her a phone. The rest is history.”