A hospital worker fulfilled her dying wish to marry her husband, two days before she passed away from cancer.
Popular theatre receptionist at St Helier Hospital Rosemary Cannon, 64, from Sutton, received her dying wish to marry her partner of 27 years, Syd, earlier this year at St Rachael’s Hospice - just two days before she died of oesophageal cancer.
Sydney Cannon tells his story
Her husband, the registrars who married her, and her colleagues, dubbed the "St Helier wedding planners", gathered at the hospital's Macmillan Cancer Support coffee morning, on Friday, to reminisce about Mrs Cannon and help raise £280 for the cancer charity.
Mr Cannon, 69, from Epsom, who works as a driver for Epsom Coaches, said: "When it became obvious Rosemary wasn’t going to get better [the wedding] was mainly down to the ladies at work - they made most of the arrangements on the Monday morning of March 11 and she passed away on the 13th.
"They were brilliant. Everybody went that extra mile. No-one could have been nicer or more helpful. It was meant to be - if we had waited another day it wouldn’t have happened.
"The registrars were concerned if she couldn’t take her vows it wouldn’t happen. To be honest if it had gone another half a day it would have been too late.
"I said two or three times afterwards ‘how is Mrs Cannon’ and she’d say ‘that’s me’. I don’t think it had quite sunk in."
Mrs Cannon
Colleague and directorate co-ordinator of anaesthetics Julie Henry, 52, from Wallington, described Mrs Cannon as a 'real character'.
Remembering the wedding say she said: "A mere 45 minutes after her arrival at St Raphael's there was a small wedding party, a bride, a groom and the two lovely registrars from Sutton Registry Office who went above and beyond their duties to enable the wedding to go ahead.
"The wedding took place with lots of tears but lots of laughter too and later that evening the staff at the hospice pushed another bed into the room so that they could spend their wedding night together."
'A real character' Mrs Cannon
Speaking after the fundraiser on Friday Mr Cannon said: "It was excellent, it went very well. Rosemary would have been really pleased with that. It was something that was close to her heart. She had a great amount of courage and determination."
If you would like to donate to Macmillan Cancer Support visit their website.
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