Christmas Day meant a bumper celebration for Bonnie Tyler, who would invite hundreds of people to celebrate with her. Still raw with grief, four months after his sister’s death on July 8, aged 75, her only surviving sibling, Paul Hopkins, 64, says: “Christmas will never be the same again, and I don’t know what we will do this year. I just can’t believe she’s gone. A major part of our family has gone. She meant everything to us and to many people around the world. It’s a massive blow.”
The Total Eclipse of the Heart legend’s love of the festive season has been honoured this week, with the posthumous release of her first Christmas single, Love Light and Peace, at the end of which she can be heard saying: “Merry Christmas all, and to all goodnight.”
.It’s been an emotional experience for Paul, who says: “It’s heart-wrenching. I can’t hold back the tears. It’s so special and I’d love it to be a hit for her. It’s been four months since we lost her and it’s still very raw.”
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Bonnie, who had homes in Mumbles, on Wales’ Gower Peninsula and in Portugal, where she died two months after emergency surgery for a perforated intestine, was the fourth of five sisters and had two brothers.
All have died except for Paul, who calls the star Gaynor, rather than Bonnie Tyler – the stage name she assumed in 1975, the year before her first hit single, Lost in France. He says: “She was Gaynor to us but she was Bonnie Tyler to the rest of the World. She’d have gone nuts if I’d called her Bonnie. She used to call me her baby brother, even when I reached my 60s.”
Recalling her final few months, he continues: “Gaynor wasn’t totally well before she went to Portugal [in the spring], but she wanted to go. On the second day they were out there I had a phone call, jumped on a plane and went over. I was there with Gaynor and Robert for 67 days. It was an extremely tough time. The last thing I said to Gaynor was that I loved her.”
Paul has far happier memories of his sister’s extravagant Christmas dos, saying: “Gaynor absolutely loved Christmas. She and her husband Robert used to have a party on Christmas Day with 3-400 people in the house.
“We’d have the karaoke going and we’d all be singing. We were like the Von Trapps! One year, Catherine Zeta Jones [a cousin of Bonnie’s husband Robert Sullivan] and Michael Douglas were there. As they are Hollywood royalty, the house was buzzing. They were lovely. Catherine kindly sat my boys on her lap for a photo.”
While Paul, who is happily married and has children and grandchildren, says they were a close family, he had a particularly tight bond with the star. He says: “I fondly remember her taking me in her first car, a Ford Anglia, on idyllic drives to the beach at Oxwich Bay.
“And in 1976, when I was a boy in a band, I went with Gaynor to a music shop in Cardiff, where she bought me a beautiful American Fender Stratocaster [guitar]. I still treasure it and will never let it go.
“When I was about 18, I had a serious car crash, went through the windscreen, and was told I’d never see again. It was a traumatic time, but Gaynor was there for me in hospital every day. I was in her house weeks later when my vision miraculously came back.”
He also greatly admired her as a performer, saying: “Way before Gaynor made it, I went to watch her sing with a local band and she was amazing. Whenever I saw her perform, I’d be nervous for her, as there’d be so many people, but she’d just put on a show and was fantastic. Once she made it, we all looked up to her. There was never any envy. We were just so proud of her.”
Paul remembers meeting Alison Moyet and The Jam through his sister. “Her idol was Tina Turner, and she said that when they met she was blown away.” She also gave him advice, when he started gigging in his teens.
Paul recalls: “Gaynor used to say ‘mean every word you’re singing. You’ve got to give it your all’, which of course she always did. She sometimes mentioned me in interviews. On one TV show within the last year, she said ‘my brother is a rock singer and he sings Bon Jovi hits better than they do. Eat your heart out, Jon!’”
Paul, who has retired from the quarry industry, still sings at weekends with a band called Sunshine Cab Co – including some Bonnie Tyler classics. He says: “After we lost Gaynor, I found it hard to sing her songs. About four weeks after she passed, I got three quarters of the way through Total Eclipse and I broke down on stage.”
But Paul has never found fame. He says: “The closest I came was writing eight songs she recorded, and singing backing vocals for her at a Cardiff fundraiser. That was brilliant.”
Bonnie, who was married to Robert – a former judo champion, nightclub manager and real estate mogul – for 53 years, sold more than 100 million records worldwide and was awarded an MBE for services to music in 2022.
Yet Paul insists: “It never went to her head. She never changed. She was always the same girl – a normal person without a bad bone in her body. We’d go out to restaurants and everyone there would want photos or autographs, and she’d do them all. She never said ‘leave me alone.’ She had plenty of time for everyone. She was the most down-to-earth megastar.
“A couple of years ago, after she’d got the keys for a new Portuguese penthouse apartment. Ahe and I sat on the balcony overlooking a marina and she said to me ‘’you know, Paul, I can’t believe what I’ve achieved, I’m just a girl from Skewen!’”
Paul still lives in Skewen, the South Wales village where the Hopkins siblings were born and raised. While his sister never had children – something he says she regretted – she was great with her nephews. He says: “She worshipped my boys, Andrew and James. When they were little, she’d borrow them, take them out and spoil them rotten. I always assumed Gaynor was going to be around for all of us. I never dreamt of this scenario.”
Recalling the outpouring of grief from her fans all over the world when his sister died, Paul continues: “People from all over the planet sent their condolences and love. Lots of international stars paid tribute to her. It goes to show how loved my sister was.
“The other day, I went to a shop and someone there asked me ‘can I give you a hug?’ There have been a lot of hugs and tears. It’s very moving.”
And once a week, Paul drives seven miles to his sister’s mansion, overlooking Swansea Bay, to feel close to her. He says: “It is difficult being there now, but also somehow comforting. When I’m there, I sit down where her ashes are [by the mantelpiece] and have a chat with her. I tell her how much I miss her and that I will love her forever.”
*Bonnie Tyler’s Christmas single Love Light And Peace was released this week on her label, Bandpick.
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