Tragedy has hit the former wife of a famous footballer and Leeds legend who died in tragic circumstances in 2011.
Gary Speed, who made 248 appearances for Leeds United, stretching from 1998 to 1996, was found dead in the garage of his home by his wife Louise. A coroner recorded a narrative verdict, saying there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove he intended to take his own life and that his death may have been an accident.
Now, the Daily Mail reports Louise has been left bereaved for a second time after her new husband Quinton Bird died after suffering from a brain tumour. Quinton, a property developer, married Louise more than a year ago in December 2021, and just over a decade after the death of the Welsh football legend Speed.
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Bird was diaognosed as having an aggressive brain tumour six months after the wedding to Louise, although he had been diagnosed more than two years earlier. Bird and Louise had been business partners for six years, and both directors of build and rennovate company called Bow Property Development in Chester.
In July, Quinton’s father Roy, 80, donated a percentage of ticket sales from the annual Hi-Fi trade exhibition in the north-west called the UK Audio Show, which he dedicated to Quinton, to the Brain Tumor Charity. Writing movingly, Roy said: "[My wife] Jenny and I have been blessed with two caring and generous sons who have grown into wonderful fathers and hard-working individuals. Over the years, they formed a wide range of friendships and were never out of work. Both have worked with me harmoniously, which has been a rare personal pleasure.
"To lose one of them at such a young age is beyond words. Thanks to Quinton, Jenny, Justin, our six beautiful grandchildren, two daughters-in-law, and I are left with a wealth of beautiful and extraordinary memories."
Louise's relationship with Quinton was revealed after she told the Daily Mail in a rare interview that she had found happiness and joy with a new partner. After the death of childhood sweetheart Gary, who took his own life in 2011, Louise said she had built up a layer of armour.
"It was like being in the worst nightmare possible," she had said. "There were no answers and no Gary walking through the door again. Nothing was ever going to be right again. I was trudging through life, just functioning. If I could have been anybody else apart from me, for a long time, I would have happily taken it.
"But we are 10 years on now. It's a cliché but time is a healer even if it takes years. I have learned that life can be good again, can be great again."
Of her new relationship, she added: "I don't think you move on from something like this as the same person," she said. "I have become wiser. I am probably more confident than I was. But I tend to wear a body of armour around me the whole time, if I am honest — so that I cannot be hurt again. I know as we go through life different things hit us and I actually think that I deal with things OK now. Nothing fazes me or scares me anymore.
"I don't know if that body of armour has developed over time or whether I deliberately put it on at some point. All I know is that it is there now and it wasn't 10 years ago. I just want to protect myself from life. I don't want to feel or go through anything like that ever again. I hope that makes sense."
In photographs from the couple's big day in 2021, Louise was pictured in a white lace gown with intricate detailing across the sleeves and train, while the stunning ceremony took place in a room filled with white hydrangeas and roses.
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