Heartbreak for Gary Speed’s widow as her second husband dies
THE widow of Wales manager Gary Speed has been bereaved again after her new husband lost his battle with cancer – just months after they wed.
Property developer Quinton Bird, 53, helped Louise Speed, 52, end years of loneliness after football boss Speed took his own life 11 years ago at just 42.
She married divorced father-of-three Mr Bird in December 2021 in a lavish ceremony at Peckforton Castle near Chester.
Mrs Speed was a business partner of the millionaire for six years, with both working as directors of the new-build and renovation company Bow Property Development in Chester.
Mr Bird’s father Roy, 80, said in a tribute that the family were ‘devastated’ and that to lose their son ‘at such a young age is beyond words’.
He said Mr Bird was a ‘wonderful’ father and that he and his wife Jenny ‘had been left with a wealth of beautiful and extraordinary memories’.
Guests at the couple’s wedding in November 2021 included former England captain Alan Shearer – a close friend of Mr Speed’s, having played with him at Newcastle United.
Mrs Speed’s relationship with Mr Bird was revealed after she told the Daily Mail she had found happiness with a new partner. However, it has now emerged that her second husband succumbed to an aggressive form of brain tumour only six months after they married.
A family source said he had suffered from brain cancer for more than two years before dying last June.
Mrs Speed, a mother- of-two, told the Mail that the death of her first husband – who was her childhood sweetheart – left her with unanswered questions, and she spent two years ‘struggling to get off the sofa’.
Mrs Speed said at the time: ‘It was like being in the worst nightmare. There were no answers and no Gary walking through the door again. Nothing was ever going to be right again. I was trudging through life, just functioning. If I could have been anybody else apart from me, for a long time, I would have happily taken it.
‘But we are ten years on now. It’s a cliché but time is a healer, even if it takes years. I have learned that life can be great again.’
Revealing her relationship with Mr Bird, she added: ‘I don’t think you move on from something like this as the same person.
‘I have become wiser. I am probably more confident. But I tend to wear a body of armour around me the whole time... so I cannot be hurt again.
‘I know as we go through life different things hit us and I actually think that I deal with things OK now. Nothing fazes me or scares me any more.
‘I don’t know if that body of armour has developed over time or whether I deliberately put it on at some point. All I know is that it is there now and it wasn’t ten years ago.
‘I just want to protect myself from life. I don’t want to feel or go through anything like that ever again. I hope that makes sense.’
In August, Mr Bird’s father, who organises an annual hi-fi trade exhibition called the UK Audio Show, dedicated the event to his eldest son and donated a percentage of ticket sales to The Brain Tumour Charity.
Writing on the event’s website, he said his grief was ‘beyond words’.
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‘Left with a wealth of beautiful memories’