Tragic groom dies after hospital wedding

A man who married his sweetheart when doctors gave him days to live has passed away.

Robert Beckett, aged 55, married Louise Jenkins, of Darlaston, at the hospital's chapel earlier this month after staff hastily organised the ceremony with 24 hours notice.

He lost his battle with mouth cancer, from which he had been suffering for 10 months, after being transferred to the Arboretum Nursing Home in Walsall for the last days of his life.

Mr Beckett has been called a "fighter" by his new wife after he battled on for two weeks after doctors gave him 24 hours to live, but Louise was too devastated to speak of her loss today.

He proposed to Louise three years ago, but his battle with cancer forced them to indefinitely postpone the big day and they had resigned themselves to the fact that they may never make their vows. But the Darlaston couple, who lived together in Haycock Place, tied the knot at a hastily organised ceremony at the Manor Hospital in Walsall.

The hospital organised the champagne, a caterer, a photographer and the chapel all in less than 24 hours and the couple were married in front of family and close friends.

The 44-year-old bride said she would be changing her surname to Beckett to mark her commitment to her dying sweetheart.

The couple met in The Nags Head pub in Darlaston where Louise worked and Robert played darts. They have known each other for eight years, but only became romantically involved after they had been friends for four years.

Their ordeal began when Robert needed a triple heart bypass, and as he was recovering from that operation he had a stroke. Last April he was diagnosed with mouth cancer.

Mr Beckett and his family were told earlier this month how he was not expected to survive the day after his 10-month fight with the disease, which has left him virtually unable to speak.

Relatives rushed to the hospital to sit with the 55-year-old.

But brave Robert survived longer than expected and his humanist friend Margo Burgers visited the hospital and asked Robert and Louise if they still had plans to marry, offering them her services.

Robert's sister-in-law, Karen Beckett, of Bilston, was with them when the question was asked. She said: "When she asked him his face just lit up, it said everything.

"He kept saying I'm getting married in the morning."