Inside Maureen Lipman's epic plans for 'big and unexpected wedding' after finding love at 78

Maureen Lipman has revealed that her fiancé is a man she once danced with in her 20s – who did not even ask her for a second spin around the dancefloor.

The favourite says of the first time she met David Turner: “I know we danced together, but he didn’t ask me for a second dance. I guess we’re having it now.” The couple, both 78, met again last year at a mutual friend’s lunch, where they got chatting and Maureen later messaged him about a poem. She says: “David told me he had a website about poetry. I went on it, and there was one about the human spirit. It just so happened that I was going to take part in an event called The Human Spirit and introduce a musical act at it. I thought, ‘That’s a coincidence’, and I messaged David. He ended up coming to it, we went for dinner with friends after and then he asked me out on a date.

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“I wrote in my diary afterwards: ‘He turned up on time in a nice clean car and we had a nice walk and went for a pub lunch. Yes, he’s very interesting.’ We’ve spent an awful lot of time since saying, ‘How did this happen?’ We can’t find the poem on the website any more, so maybe I was deliberately chasing him…” This summer Maureen got down on one knee to ask business consultant David to marry her – and he said yes.

It all came as a surprise to Maureen, who lost husband Guido Castro to cancer in 2021. Her previous husband, writer Jack Rosenthal, died in 2004. She admits: “I wasn’t really looking for a new relationship.” Finding herself smitten, Maureen took advantage of the Jewish festival Tu B’Av – a day when a Jewish woman can ask a man to marry her. She got down on one knee on a train from Edinburgh. She says: “I prop­osed as a joke as I’d been rather against the ‘M’ word. I never really expected him to say yes, but to my surprise and slight panic, he said it.”

Maureen says she worries about finding a venue big enough as David “has about 9,000 rel­­atives”, adding: “You can’t walk down the street without him knowing someone. What’s important is that my two, and his three, grown-up kids are happy about it and they get on. I can’t believe I’m marrying again. I’m very lucky to have had three exceptional men in my life. We’re enjoying this unexpected Indian summer of late love together.”

Maureen – Corrie’s Evelyn Plummer, and Beattie from BT’s TV ads in the 80s – is also preparing to play Mrs Potty in Beauty and the Beast at Richmond Theatre in Surrey. She said: “I’ll include some ’ology jokes, of course, and some Evelyn-isms. It’s got to work for the kids and the adults.”

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