“Deliriously” happy widow and widower get married again – aged 90
A widow and widower say they are “deliriously” happy after remarrying – aged 90.
Sheila and Timothy ‘Tim’ Harris, from Coxheath, Kent, said “I do” once more and tied the knot at Saint Nicholas Church, Linton on Thursday (March 20).
The smitten couple first met each other six years ago at the Village Tea Rooms in Headcorn after being introduced by their daughters.
Sheila had been married to husband Ron Macdonald for 55 years – but after a lengthy battle with his health, he died in November 2017.
Meanwhile, Tim lost his beloved Brenda to throat cancer the following February.
Neither expected they would wed again.
But the two hit it off straight away and Tim, who had been heartbroken, said the “lights just came on” when they met.
He said: “I was being looked after after my wife died by her gang of friends and they’d invited me to have lunch with them.
“So I had several lunches and I paid, and Michelle, Sheila’s daughter, said ‘I’m going to bring my mum if that is all right’.
“I said ‘what a flipping cheek’ and going through Sheila’s head was ‘If you think you’re matchmaking my girl you’re making a big mistake’.”
But instead, the golf enthusiast said he was left “most impressed” with Sheila.
Speaking on meeting her future husband for the first time, she said: “He very kindly opened a tin of lemonade for me and I thought how jolly nice.”
Tim added: “Going through my head was that she was a very attractive lady – she’d got lovely hands and nails, lovely eyes, a lovely mouth.
“Within a month we were pretty much an item and we’ve been deliriously happy ever since.”
The two have discovered they share many similar interests – both had played tennis, badminton and squash locally, at times taking part in friendly matches.
Now, the pair have developed hobbies together- with Tim joining Sheila’s church choir.
After lockdown, he moved into her bungalow after Sheila kindly offered to help care for him and his bad shoulder.
And, on Valentine’s Day this year, Tim popped the question.
He said: “We said well, we’re still crackling on at 90 and we’re having lovely holidays, cruises and we’re both pretty fit and we thought we must get married.
“So I bought Sheila a nice engagement ring and then next thing we saw a lovely vicar and said we would much prefer a church service than a registry office and it all ploughed ahead and it was just wonderful.”
Sheila added: “The day was absolutely beautiful because the sun shined all day.”
Although there is not an official honeymoon booked, the newlyweds will be taking a trip to Rottingdean next month and embarking on a cruise in June.
And for those who have lost a beloved but are perhaps looking to find love again, Tim offered some words of advice
He added: “Get out and about. Find love and find someone who can have a bit of give and take.
“Obviously, make sure you have things you like together and just make sure there is lots of love.
“I’ve moved in from a four-bedroom house to Sheila’s little bungalow and of course, my possessions have been cast to the winds really – but we just belong together, we are just so happy.”
Woman who survived cancer twice gives birth to “miracle baby”
An overjoyed woman has given birth to a “miracle baby” after surviving cancer twice.
Rebecca Moss, 28, was first diagnosed aged 20 in 2016 with Hodgkins Lymphoma, a blood cancer, and then again four years later aged 24 in 2021 with Ewing Sarcoma, which affected her lungs.
She was told by the doctors the chances of her and husband, Kris, 29, an agricultural contractor, ever having a baby naturally were “extremely low” as the treatment would have affected her fertility.
But against all odds Rebecca gave birth to baby girl Rubylee May Moss.
Rebecca said: “I am very lucky and very grateful to have her, she is just so precious.
“Rubylee is brilliant, just perfect and she eats so much – she’s like her dad.”
The now mother from Wilberfoss, in Yorkshire, had two years of chemotherapy and radiotherapy before doctors declared the Ewing Sarcoma tumour which had affected her rib cage and lungs as not active in July 2023.
This means that every three months she has a check up and a CT scan to check if the cancer has reactivated.
In late July 2024 Rebecca began “feeling sick” fearing her cancer had returned.
Rebecca said: “I had a CT scan coming up and they ask you if you are pregnant.”
“I was feeling sick at the time and I was worried that the cancer may had come back.”
“I did a pregnancy test on the off chance and it came up positive but I thought it must be a mistake because of everything my body has been through.”
A couple of days before the CT scan, on August 2, Rebecca had an ultrasound to doublecheck if she had a baby on the way.
Rebecca said: “It turned out I was 11 weeks and four days into my pregnancy.
“The lady doing the scan had tears in her eyes and I had to go off and cry as it was such a shock.”
“I told Kris, but then we were worries whether or not we’d be able to keep the baby, but we got in touch with the team in Leeds and they were great.”
Around seven months later Rebecca gave birth to her daughter who weighed 7lb on Thursday February 20.
She was named Ruby after Kris’s grandma and Lee after 22-year-old TikTok star Leah Smith, from Woolton, Merseyside, who had Ewing’s Sarcoma like Rebecca and died last year and May after her grandma.
Rebecca, from Wilberfoss, Yorshire, became friends with Leah as they share the type of same cancer.
She said: I never got to meet her, but she helped me after I was diagnosed.”
Before she became ill with cancer for the second time Rebecca worked as a beautician.
She now studies media make-up, special effects, and hair design degree at York College.
She finished the first semester but has since been deferred until January 2026.
For now Rebecca said she’s enjoying being mum to Rubylee, who is now four weeks old, and her dog Smokey a cockapoo.
She said, “I’ve pretty much got my hands full.
“It just goes to show you shouldn’t give up hope as you never know what’s round the corner.”
Music teacher who ‘discovered’ Michael Jackson reveals when she knew he was a star
The music teacher who ‘discovered’ Michael Jackson can still remember when she first heard his voice – as he sang a hit from the Sound of Music.
Anita Hill, 91, of Gary, Indiana, who honed Jacko’s talent before he became the face of the Jackson 5, has spoken out ahead of a new biopic coming out later this year.
Hill ‘discovered’ the King of Pop by putting him in a choir as a little boy after hearing the unmistakable melody in his voice in the tune Climb Every Mountain.
Before that even Jacko’s parents didn’t know he could sing.
“Michael, which is slated to hit theaters on October 3 will star MJ’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson — the son of Jermaine.
Hill shared her thoughts on the upcoming film, memories of his early days, and reflects on the tragedy that ultimately took over Jackson’s life.
“He looks like him automatically,” she said of Jaafar. “No surgery or nothing. He looks just like him.”
Although Hill doesn’t know if her character will be in the film, she expressed hope that the story will capture the essence of Jackson’s impact.
“I hope it covers all of that. Things that he did to make people happy, and all of the things that he tried to do and the way he kept going, he kept singing,” she said.
“Whatever happened, he was right there and he enjoyed it. He loved it,” she added. “And he has family, and now they’re trying to imitate him. So he was a leader.”
As his music teacher at Garnett Elementary School in Gary, Hill recalled the early years of the King of Pop before he became the face of the Jackson 5.
She was sent to the school by the Gary Community Center as a second music teacher when she first encountered young Michael.
“There were two music teachers, another lady and myself,” Hill recalled.
“When I was there, the principal asked me to prepare a program for the teachers association that was having a meeting.
“I had to try to walk around and find something to do.
“So I listened to all my different classes and I heard a couple of boys singing pretty good, and I told them to come to the office, let me listen to them.
“And I started listening. Michael, who was probably six years old at the time, his voice was so melodious and stayed on pitch and he was very good.”
Hill taught him “Climb Every Mountain” from “The Sound of Music,” despite him being so young that he couldn’t read yet.
She says his parents — Joe and Katherine — were unaware of his vocal talent until they saw him perform at the school event.
“His parents didn’t know he could sing either,” she said. “They heard him for the first time.
“So after that, they started using him and I started using him myself because I was in charge of the choir, had a hundred kids in the choir and he was the only little one.
“I didn’t use little children. I had fifth and sixth graders, and he was so good I just added him with the group.”
Hill noted that Jackson was much younger than the other choir members, but his talent made him stand out.
“He was a baby and he was not really old enough to be in the group that I put him in, but he could sing and had a beautiful voice,” she said. “His memorization was fantastic.”
She also recalled how his natural showmanship became apparent early on.
“I just realized when I was thinking about him yesterday, when he was in the choir that I had, they marched in to a rhythm,” she explained.
“And by him being the smallest, he led the group in the march to the stage and we did our performance.
And also some of the songs we had dancing with it, and he would dance just as well as the big ones. So I just realized that started his dancing career also.”
Hill described Jackson as “very nice” and “very kind,” saying he had an effect on his classmates.
“The main thing about him volunteering to sing, other little kids started singing too,” she said.
“In fact, they were angry with me because I didn’t put them in the choir. I did it with him, but I couldn’t explain to them that it was because his voice texture was different.”
She also remembered how dedicated Michael was to his talent.
“Every time I would ask a volunteer, his hand would automatically go up,” she said. “Anytime you ask him to sing anything, he would sing it. And if he didn’t know, he would try.”
Even at a young age, Jackson’s abilities were beyond those of his peers.
“There was no comparison in voice. None. None whatsoever. He could sing low like a bass, he could sing high like a tenor. His voice could fluctuate up and down.”
Although she recognized his immense gift, she admitted she never imagined just how far he would go in his career.
“I didn’t really think he’d get as far as he did, even though he was good,” she said. “I was really shocked and happy.”
Reflecting on his life struggles later on, Hill shared her thoughts on his challenges with fame and health.
A far cry from the little boy Hill knew in the 1960s, Jackson was twice accused of child molestation and became addicted to prescription medication over the years.
He died on June 25, 2009 from propofol intoxication at the hands of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray – just weeks away from performing his comeback “This is It” shows in London.
“I really think he became addicted to drugs unintentionally,” she said.
“You want to feel a certain way, and I think he just wanted to feel good and that was it. A lot of them do that.
“In order to be a performer, you have to feel a certain way to get out there on that stage in order to do like you did every day.”
Hill also reflected on Michael’s changing appearance over the years, particularly his skin condition.
“When he first did the song for me, he had a little small afro and he was tiny,” she said.
“And then as the years passed, actually, some of his skin looked like it changed on its own, because you can’t really change your face without changing the body.
“But his whole body, his arms — I think I could see his arms and hands — and they were all the same color as the rest of his body. So that’s what always concerned me.”
In 2009, Hill spoke at Jackson’s memorial at Steel Yard baseball stadium in Gary.
Recently, two Jackson brothers visited Gary when a music program was named after the Motown group.
“Tito and Marlon were here and I went to a program,” Hill said.
“One of the schools here started a music program, a new building, and named it after the Jacksons. I took a picture with them. They come to the city quite often.”
She also attended a performance honoring Jackson’s legacy in 2020.
“I went to New York to see the films they had about him,” she said. “They selected other children that could imitate him.
“The boys were good. They really imitated him pretty good, but they weren’t Michael.”
As an influential force behind the legendary King of Pop, Hill shared words of encouragement for those striving to achieve their dreams.
“Whatever you start, keep on doing it,” she said. “You are going to become successful if you don’t give up.”
“I’ve been digging graves for 40 years – I love the nature and peace of a cemetery”
The UK’s longest serving gravedigger has no plans to hang up his shovel – after working in cemeteries for more than 40 years.
Mick Woods, 61, says he enjoys being out in nature and using his hands to give people a “respectful” send off.
Mick has spades of experience after digging more than 20,000 graves in cemeteries around Nottinghamshire since he started in 1984.
The grandad still digs more than four graves a week at Mansfield Cemetery and says the deepest can take nearly two days to complete.
Mick, who lives near the cemetery, said: “At the end of the day you can go home satisfied that you’ve helped someone with their bereavements and know that their loved ones have been laid to rest with respect.
“It’s a long process and in their grief they need to know their loved ones are respected from the minute they go from the undertaker to the last place where they’ll be laid to rest.”
Mick started digging graves after working as a gardener aged 16 before getting a job at Mansfield Cemetery in 1984.
He admits that the essential job can be risky and he has escaped being buried himself on several occasions due to graves collapsing following heavy rain.
On another occasion the ground gave way around the edge of a grave and Mick almost tumbled into the hole but was saved when he scrambled out.
He said: “Everyday is different and I like being outdoors, you have to take the rough with the smooth with the weather and you get to meet some interesting families and you get to know all about their loved ones.
“At Mansfield we’re up to about 40,000 graves, and when I started there were only about 20,000, so I’ve done about 20,000 graves or even more.
“We go in peaks and troughs but it averages out about three or four a week over the four cemeteries that we work over.”
While the average grave used to take half a day to prepare, Mick can now have one ready in under 45 minutes thanks to modern machinery.
He added: “In the early days when we used to do everything by hand and it could take all day or more to dig a six foot grave.
“These days we do get the tractor to do most of the digging and then we have to go down and make sure the measurements are right and that we haven’t disturbed the coffin if it’s what we call a ‘reopen’.”
Mick and his team usually carry out exhumations when people move away and want to relocate the remains of their loved ones to a cemetery nearby.
Mick says his job requires him and his team to have a good sense of humour and have people make jokes at his expense.
He added: “When people asked me what I do, I just blurt it out – grave digger/gardener – that’s what am and what I have done for last 40 years.
“You do get the odd joke like – ‘you must work in the dead centre of Mansfield’ or ‘your job must be dead boring’ but I just let them wash over me. I am quite happy doing what I am doing and that’s the main thing.”
Despite his gavedigging career, Mick admits he still hasn’t decided if he wants to be buried or cremated when his own time’s up.
He added: “I don’t really know which I want, buried or cremated, to be fair.
“It’s a funny one, I’m getting to that age where I should be making my mind up where I want to be.
“I always joke with the girls at the crematorium that I’m going to go up the A614 and be chucked over the hedge and let the pigs eat me. So I really don’t know.
“I’ve dug family graves where we’ve had wives, husbands and uncles. Thankfully I’ve never had to dig one for my own family.
“Usually we do try and dig a couple of days in advance so we’re ready for the day the funeral takes place.
“I don’t know many people who have done it for as long as me, they all seem to come and go.
“Obviously the old boys who trained me have all gone now. It looks like I’m going to be here until retirement and then put my shovel up at the end.
“I’m the longest running digger, I’m the dad of the team.”
