Thousands of fans take to the streets to say goodbye to Bonnie Tyler in her native Wales

BarcelonaThousands of fans filled the streets of Mumbles, Wales, this Saturday to say goodbye to singer Bonnie Tyler, who died on July 8 at the age of 75. The artist's followers followed the coffin, covered with a Welsh flag and accompanied by a photograph of Tyler, through the town's streets singing one of his best-known hits, which is Total eclipse of the heart, a trending song after the historic eclipse from a few days ago. The singer's final farewell will be held this Monday at the church of Santa Maria, in Swansea. The city was the artist's temporary residence, who died in Faro (Portugal) due to complications arising from an intestinal perforation.

“She always returned home and with her fans from Wales,” declares Carys Edwards, 18, a Tyler follower, to the Guardian. “Her songs reached the hearts of all the Welsh people. We loved her very much”, he adds. Some followers travelled from other parts of the United Kingdom to say goodbye to the singer. Michael Bone and his partner, Alan Hawkins, went from Derby (England) to witness the procession and pay tribute to the singer. “During my adolescence her music was very important”, the couple assures the same newspaper. The funeral ceremony will be restricted to friends and family, but it will be broadcast on a giant screen in St David's Square, Swansea, for the artist's followers who have travelled. Once the ceremony is over, the coffin will go to Skewen, the artist's hometown, where a private farewell will take place.

Bonnie Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins into a large family of five siblings. Her father worked in a coal mine and her mother sang in the village church choir, which brought Tyler closer to the world of music. The singer explained in The Guardian in 2013 that she “was a working-class woman” and that she didn’t stop performing because she believed “others would like to have the same opportunities she has had”. “I am still that young girl from Wales, dancing next to a piano with her family”, Tyler wrote in her memoirs. Among the singer's hits are It’s a heartache, Holding out for a hero and Total eclipse of the heart. The latter was released in 1983 and quickly climbed to number one on the charts in the United Kingdom and the United States. Now a veteran, the singer represented the United Kingdom at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmö.