Widow dies of ‘broken heart’
Tuesday 2nd June 2009, 3:00PM BST.
Richard and Vera Jones with their daughter Pippa
A Shrewsbury woman died of a broken heart just eight days after her husband lost his fight with cancer, their daughter said today.
World War Two veteran Richard Robert Somme Jones, 90, died on May 24, and his wife Vera died of heart failure yesterday at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.
Today their daughter Pip Jones, 44, of Knockin Heath, near Oswestry, said her parents, of Copthorne, Shrewsbury, had wanted to “go together”.
She said: “I think mum just gave up really and just wanted to go. My mum had been ill for quite some time. It was heart failure in the end. She just gave up. When my dad died, she did not want to fight any more.
The couple married in 1960 and were both teachers working in schools in Harlescott, Shrewsbury.
In 2007, Mr Jones was made an MBE for services to the Shropshire branch of the Burma Star Association.
He was born in Pontesbury, grew up in Mid Wales and was in the first battalion for the Royal Scots Fusiliers, serving in India and Burma.
As part of the British 36th division, his battalion was flown in to relieve the Chindits – the largest of the allied Special Forces of World War Two.
Miss Jones said her parents had been ill after Christmas and had nursed each other.
She said: “My mum was very poorly after Christmas and was in hospital for quite a while. My dad did a lot for my mum.
“It will be a joint funeral as at the end of the day, they wanted to be together.”
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