JAMES BLUNDELL POPS THE QUESTION... 40 YEARS LATER!
The country musici legend will finaly marry the girl he famously pined for in his hit 1992 song Down On The Farm
Hopeless romantic James was brimming over with joy when he dropped to one knee in front of his high school sweetheart Rebecca Williams and proposed with his mum’s precious wedding band last weekend.
“I’ve waited 40 years to propose to this remarkable woman so I wanted to get it right!” James, 55, tells Woman’s Day from the Blundells’ 2000-hectare sheep station in remote Western Queensland.
“We’d been out mustering all day – I don’t think Bec had a clue what I was about to do. After dinner, I gathered the family around the fireplace
where my grandad Peter proposed to my grandma Peg.
“I said, ‘Rebecca Williams, will you marry me?’ Thankfully she said yes! My dad Pete and my eldest boys Briar and Travis were there. Everyone in my world adores Bec, and you can’t blame them – she’s a delight!
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when I slid my mum Marjory’s wedding band onto Bec’s ring finger. We sadly lost Mum back in 2011. I wish she could’ve shared this precious moment with us, but I reckon she’s never too far away.”
It was the 1970s when the young lovebirds first laid eyes on each other at high school – Bec was a popular student at St Hilda’s on the Gold Coast and James was boarding at the nearby Southport School.
Bec’s dad, the late Keith Williams, who built Sea World and Hamilton Island, famously flew his only daughter on a private chopper out to James’ country retreat for holidays.
Bec still remembers the one thing she forgot to pack – her undies! “I had to borrow some from James. I was such a princess and I was mortified at the thought of having to wear his well-worn jocks!” she says with a cheeky smile.
“Who would’ve thought almost 40 years later I’d be back here with this beautiful man who really does complete me – we fit together like a pair of well-worn boots!”
‘We fit together like a pair of well-worn boots…’
In the years that followed, James returned to the family property and started to forge his career in country music. Bec had no idea until years later she was the inspiration for Down On The Farm!
“It starts with the line, ‘Rebecca told me with my heart in her hand…’ and the first night I saw Bec after 37 years, I told her I loved her. She said, ‘How could you possibly say that?’ to which I replied, ‘It’s easy for me, I’ve known since I was 16 – you’ve just got to catch up!’”
It’s a second chance at love Bec never in her wildest dreams believed would happen. “Over the years I watched his career from afar. I knew he got married, as did I, and that he has four gorgeous kids, Briar, Travis, Fian and Ria. By chance my brother Ben ran into James on the Gold
Coast and gave him my number, assuring him I was very single – I guess the rest is history!” she laughs.
Bec is planning to move permanently from Sydney to the farm, where she hopes the locals in nearby Stanthorpe accept the Queensland-born native with open arms.
“I love my birth state and I love the land. I was a champion horse-rider as a youngster, so it really is like coming home,” she says. “My dad would be so happy for us, and my mum Thea, who lives on the Gold Coast, loves James more than me! Everyone in our lives is thrilled for us, especially my matchmaker little brother!”
James is already planning their big day later this year, although he suspects it won’t be quite the shindig his future missus deserves, because of the current restrictions.
“We’re still recovering from the drought, and with what’s going on in the world right now I’m not touring, so we’ll be happy enough to have our loved ones gather from far and wide.
“It took us bloody long enough to find one another, so a good old sausage sizzle and a couple of cold beers will do me! I’ve got Bec, we’ve got each other, and that’s all that matters.”