Lady Forsyth: 'I was so scared I was going to lose Bruce'

Bruce Forsyth and Wilnelia Forsyth. Photo / Getty Images

Lady Wilnelia Forsyth is grinning fit to burst. Earlier this week she took her husband, Bruce, to hospital for a scan to check whether a lengthy operation to repair two life-threatening aneurysms had been successful. It was.

'They had to see if all the stents [small tubes inserted to keep arteries open] are in the right place and there hasn't been a leak,' she says. 'They showed us a picture. It's amazing. I think we've gone around the corner now, especially today. I want to celebrate knowing he's going to be OK.

'It's been a really, really big worry for me - a very emotional two months. I've been in tears at times, but have been trying to be positive in front of Bruce, telling him he was going to get better. It's easy to say, but you just don't know . . .'

The sentence trails away and Wilnelia's eyes darken as she considers the unthinkable. For, make no mistake about it, 87-year-old Sir Bruce has been through a terrible ordeal.
When I arrive, he is resting upstairs in their warm, family home on the edge of the Wentworth golf course in Virginia Water, Surrey.

It is where he has spent most of the past two months since falling in his bedroom on October 8. In truth, it's a miracle of sorts he is here at all.

For were it not for the fall - which left his face horribly bruised - two unrelated aneurysms, twice the size of a golf ball, would have remained undetected.

'He had every scan and test possible to try to find out why he'd fallen. The two aneurysms showed up on a body scan. It's what they call a silent killer,' says Wilnelia.

'An aneurysm is like a blood-filled balloon where the side of your artery bulges out. Usually they operate if it's bigger than 5cm. Bruce had one in the aorta here (she puts a hand on her stomach), which was 7cm, and one in the renal artery (she gestures toward her kidney), which was 7.9cm.

'At any moment, they could have burst inside him and if that happens, 85 per cent of people don't make it to the hospital in time.

'We were supposed to be going to Puerto Rico for Christmas. Can you imagine if anything like that had happened on the plane?' She shudders.

Bruce is, she says, 'my husband, my lover, my mentor, my friend'.

Throughout their 32-year marriage he has been as fit as a flea.

So much so that Wilnelia, 58, has barely given a thought to the 29 years that separate them - until now, that is.

'I'm not ready to lose him yet,' she says. 'This has scared me to death, particularly waiting in that hospital when he was having his operation. That felt like an eternity.

'Because of Bruce's age there are so many risks involved. One of his best friends, Norman Angel, passed away last year at the age of 91 after having an operation, so all those things go through your mind.

'You think: "My God, will he come out all right?" But you have to trust the doctors.
'The alternative - not having the surgery - was worse. It's like you're in a corner. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, because this is such a fatal thing.'
Wilnelia spent the night before the operation on November 12 with Bruce in his private room at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London. In fact, she remained with him for his entire seven-day stay.

'I couldn't be any other place,' she says. 'I knew I'd be worrying about him. The nurses are wonderful, but it's not the same as having someone there who loves you.'

On the morning of the operation, before going down to the operating theatre, Bruce gave her a letter.

'I opened it after he'd left. It was very beautiful. It made me cry. It was a love letter. He included the song lyrics "I don't care how much it may storm, I've got my love to keep me warm".

'I can't tell you the rest because it's very personal, but it was incredible. He was telling me one more time about his love for me.

'Once I was alone, I was crying, but was trying to be positive. I remember praying. I pray a lot. I was even praying to his friend Norman. I was saying: "Norman I know you miss my husband, but please get someone else to play golf up there."

'As I finished my prayer, the door opened and it was Bruce's girls. [Bruce has five daughters, Debbie, Julie, Laura, Charlotte and Louisa, from his two previous marriages, and a 29-year-old son, Jonathan Joseph - known by everyone as JJ - with Wilnelia.

'Bruce hadn't wanted the children to come to the hospital because he didn't want them sitting there worrying about him, but there they were.

'We hugged each other and they stayed there with me through all that time - the operation took five hours.

'Then suddenly the doors opened and it was the two doctors to let us know everything had gone OK, but they'd taken him to intensive care.

'We cried so much. It's such an emotional thing when you care so much for someone.' Wilnelia's eyes fill with tears as she talks.

'Shock' is the word she uses to describe the past few months. A shock for her and truly shocking for Bruce who, as she says, 'has never really had anything wrong with him' before now.

Because of his discomfort, he has not been the easiest of patients, though. So much so that Wilnelia is not too sure how she would have coped without the support of her step-daughters, whom she loves dearly, and her son.

'They've been my angels - my rock,' she says. 'This operation has taken so much energy from him, but he's so much better now. Look.'

She shows me a photograph of Bruce on her iPhone with the latest of his ten grand- children, Anastasia, born just four weeks ago, before flicking through to one of a bowl of porridge with raisins arranged in a smiley face.

'That was to make him laugh. I've been trying to cheer him up in every single way. Bruce is usually so active, so this has been very, very hard for him.

'He's such a proud man. He's found it difficult having to depend on me all the time.
'Because of the aneurysms, his legs have swollen up. Bruce has dancer's feet so just to see himself like that . . .' And again, the sentence trails away.

We're talking in the sitting room, which Wilnelia decorated for Christmas only this week. She and Bruce were supposed to be in her native Puerto Rico, as they are every year. Bruce's ill health has, of course, put paid to that.

The Christmas tree that stands in the corner is, much like Wilnelia, a vibrant, colourful creation. She is a very beautiful woman, in a silk blouse and black skirt with legs a 30-year-old would be proud of.

A moonflower-scented candle, decorated with deep-pink painted colonial Puerto Rican houses, burns on the table beside us. It is from a collection of five candles designed by Wilnelia that she was presenting to Fortnum & Mason on the morning of Bruce's fall.

'I'd left home very early because I was doing the presentation,' she says. 'Bruce told me he was sitting on the edge of the bed. We have a large platform bed. It's 7ft with a step - it's like being on stage,' she giggles.

'He didn't faint because he didn't lose consciousness, but he did fall. He really hurt himself and bruised his face. It was as though he'd been in a fight, and he cut himself here.' She points to her temple.

'Luckily he had his phone, so he called our housekeeper, Cora. She immediately called the doctor and his manager, Ian Wilson.

'Ian wanted to call me, but Bruce said: "Don't call her. She's doing her presentation, so please don't." He knew how excited I was about it, but he also knew I'd cancel if they told me.

'The presentation went so well. I was on a real high, and then Ian rang. He said: "Don't worry, but Bruce has had a little accident. He's in hospital." It was awful.

'That drive to the hospital in Windsor was like a lifetime. A million things go through your mind. My mother and father are in their 80s, too. One of my nightmares is losing them all at the same time.'

A barrage of tests on Bruce followed. The body scan was carried out only when blood tests and brain scans had failed to discover anything amiss. 'We were so very lucky,' she says. 'Bruce is my life. I can't bear to think . . .'

Indeed, Bruce is, Wilnelia says, her first and only love. They met five years after she won the 1975 Miss World title, when they were judging the 1980 beauty pageant.

She was 22, he 51. He asked her to dance at the dinner after- wards, and they never returned to the table.

'I know it sounds strange because I was in my 20s, but I'd never fallen in love before,' she says.

'When you do, you have that butterfly thing. It was an immediate chemistry. I remember asking: "Are you sure you're an English guy because you dance so well?"

'He was so charming. He told me he was separated [from his second wife and former Generation Game hostess, Anthea Redfern] and had five children.

'I thought: "Oh my God, that's brave telling me that."

'I didn't know anything about Bruce, certainly not what he was in showbusiness. In those days, you couldn't Google. I remember all these people kept coming up to him saying: "Nice to see you, to see you nice." And I thought: "How lovely to have so many friends."

'I didn't think about the age difference at all until he asked me to marry him and I introduced him to my parents.

'Then it hit me: I was going to tell my mother and father I was getting married to someone older than both of them. But Bruce has never showed his age. He's so young at heart and has such a great sense of humour. We love the same music, we love the same movies, we have the same values - and there was that chemistry.

'I remember he proposed around the time an acquaintance lost her husband in a terrible accident. I thought: "This is a beautiful couple who are both young and look what happened to him."

'It could happen to anyone - I could be the one who died first. But I knew that whatever time I had with Bruce was going to be fantastic.'

How did her parents take it? 'My father doesn't speak any English, which I think was good in a way,' she giggles.

'No, truthfully, they embraced him. I wasn't a girl to bring boyfriends home, and they knew I was in love.

'I knew what people would think about me marrying Bruce because of our age difference, but I couldn't knock on everyone's door and tell them I wasn't a trophy wife. I knew who I was, and I knew I loved Bruce.'

Following their 1983 wedding in New York, Bruce and Wilnelia spent two wonderful months travelling the world together, before returning to the house they still live in to start their married life.

'That first year was difficult. I missed my parents a lot. The first few months, Bruce was working and I was just in the house looking at the trees. The days were so long. I kept calling him, asking: "When are you coming home?"

'He was very clever. He asked my mother to come over and that was great. I also had the girls.

'When I met the two little ones, Charlotte and Louisa, they were four and five. They used to come here and I made cakes with them. I adored them.'

How did the older three, who are not much younger than Wilnelia herself, take to her? She laughs.

'I remember when I first met them. Bruce came to pick me up from the hotel where I was staying, and I changed my dress three or four times. I put my hair up. I put it down. I wanted to look older because suddenly I realised I was going to meet these three girls who were more or less my age.

'What were they going to think, especially because their father had been divorced twice - "Here we go again"? But it was wonderful. We've talked about it since and they say they saw that he was so happy.'

It is this sort of honesty that lies at the heart of their marriage.

'Before we got married we agreed on certain things,' she says. 'Like I knew I wanted to have children, even though he wasn't really crazy about the idea because he had five already. When JJ was born, I was the happiest I've ever been. I wish I'd had more. We tried, but then I had an ectopic pregnancy.

'That was a tough time. I was feeling strange so I went to see the doctor, but they couldn't find the baby because it wasn't in my womb. I had to have an operation. One day you're happy because you're pregnant, then you're crying because you're not.

'I would have loved to have had a little girl.' She shrugs. 'I just have to hope that JJ will give me a lot of grandchildren.'

JJ arrives as we're talking and wanders upstairs to see his dad. This is a remarkably close family. I know from speaking to Bruce a few months ago how much he cherishes them. If one or the other of them so much as pops to the shops, they kiss each other goodbye.

As for Bruce and Wilnelia, mutual admiration - his for her as an artist, mother and wife, not to mention a committed fundraiser with a foundation in Puerto Rico; and hers for him as a father, friend, husband and national treasure - is the bedrock of this marriage.

'At the beginning he said to me: "Listen, you are so much younger. If, one day, you don't feel that this love is there any more, just tell me," ' she says. 'But I've been in love with him all the time.

'Our life has been wonderful and I have never taken it for granted. I believe when a relationship starts with a commitment, you can overcome anything together.

'We've been told with this kind of operation it will take one or two months more for him to fully recover. Seeing my husband getting better is like having an early Christmas present.'

- Daily Mail