'Wedding was one of saddest days of our lives': Couple married days after brother died in Manchester United Munich air disaster
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Irene and Jeff Neal will mark their 60th wedding anniversary on Thursday with a glass of bubbly.
But, just like every other year, their ­celebration will be muted. For their wedding day was one of the saddest of their lives.
No photographs, no music, no revelry – and the honeymoon was cancelled.
Just two days earlier, on February 6, 1958, Irene’s brother Mark Jones died in the Munich air crash which wiped out most of the Manchester United team, known as the Busby Babes after manager Sir Matt.
Centre-half Mark, a former England schoolboys captain, was 24.
(Image: Mirrorpix.com)
Team-mates Tommy Taylor, Geoff Bent, Eddie Colman, Roger Byrne, Billy Whelan and David Pegg were killed. Duncan Edwards, one of England’s finest ever ­players, died in hospital 15 days later.
The death toll was 23 and included sports reporters and backroom United staff.
Irene and Jeff were numbed. But they went ahead with the wedding – ­“because doing it later wasn’t going to hurt any less, it might even reopen the wounds”.
So on the morning of February 8, a ­grieving Irene put on her wedding dress and married her fiancé Jeff, 20.
(Image: Getty)
Then they hurried out of the back door of the church and were taken home, where Irene put her mourning clothes back on. So began their 60-year marriage.
Now, 81, Irene sits behind drawn curtains in Barnsley, South Yorks. and recalls: “There was no music, no wedding march. Can you imagine trying to get people to sing after all that was happening?
"The church was so mobbed with press photographers they had to let us out of the back door but no one got a picture.”
Irene’s day was ­already over­shadowed by the death weeks earlier of her mum Lucy, 61. She wanted to wear black on her ­wedding day in mourning for Lucy – but Mark ­persuaded her she should wear white.
Irene obliged, but she recalls: “My dad said I looked lovely but I didn’t feel lovely at all. I cancelled the ­photographer. I didn’t want pictures. The only picture I’ve got of me in that dress is one we took a year later.
“Jeff’s mother had two sons and wanted wedding pictures to go either side of her hearth, so we ­decided to take one.”
Of Mark, Irene says proudly: “He was a local celebrity. When he came home from Manchester at weekends, kids used to wait outside the house.”
(Image: Sunday Mirror)
United, League champions the previous two seasons, were returning from a European Cup tie in Belgrade when their plane stopped at snow-hit Munich‑Riem airport to refuel.
Bad weather twice prevented it taking off but the all-clear was given for a third ­attempt and the players climbed back on to British European Airways Flight 609.
The twin-propeller plane failed to reach sufficient speed and skidded across the runway, through a fence, across a road and into a house. Busby and others – including Sir Bobby Charlton – survived and would go on to lead United to further greatness.
(Image: Getty)
Irene recalls a reporter knocked at the door, asking if she’d heard the news from Germany. She says: “I was in shock. We didn’t even have a phone. I ran to the phone box and called Manchester but they didn’t know anything.
“That night we sat in listening to the radio for any news. We jumped when they read Matt Busby’s name out as a survivor – thinking it would be our Mark. But it wasn’t.
“I can’t imagine Mark wanting to get on that plane a third time after they tried to take off twice.”
(Image: Getty)
The next day a policeman called and confirmed Mark had died. It was 24 hours ­before Irene’s wedding.
She says: “It was awful. Waiting wasn’t going to bring Mark back so we got on with it. But it wasn’t a happy day.”
Manchester United are marking the crash anniversary with a memorial service at Old Trafford on Tuesday. A clock at the stadium shows the date of the disaster and is set to 3.04pm, the time of the crash.
(Image: Getty)
Irene and Jeff will mark the date quietly, at home. On Thursday they will share a meal with sons Jeff, 57, and Glenn, 49.
Irene adds: “We’ve had a long and happy marriage, despite the start. It doesn’t ever stop hurting or really get any easier. It is just less intense as time goes on.
“I don’t like February. It’s a sad time and it’s hard that my anniversary is so close to the tragedy. Still I think I made the right decision getting on with it when I did. It wouldn’t have got any easier.”