Coronation Street star Maureen Lipman is ready to say ‘I do’ to husband number two as she walks down the aisle to marry David Turner following her proposal on a train

Coronation Street star Maureen Lipman is ready to walk down the aisle for the second time at the age of 79. The actress is to exchange vows with fiance David Turner, also 79, after proposing to him on a train.

Maureen, who plays Evelyn Plummer on the Corrie cobbles, will embark on her second marriage. Her first husband was former Coronation Street writer Jack Rosenthal.

The pair tied the knot in 1974 and spent 30 years together before his death. She has remained relatively private on her life off-screen, but preciously spoke out about Jack’s death in 2004 at the age of 72.

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Jack died from multiple myeloma, a form of cancer. She told The People: “I have had a wonderful life, I have had my losses, of course. I lost my husband far too young to myeloma.”

She added: “I lost my partner in January and what gets me through is what gets the Queen through, work. I don’t know what to do if I am not working, I don’t know what to be if I am not working.

Four years on from the death of Jack, Maureen found love again. She went on to have a relationship with retired computer expert Guido Castra. Sadly, Guido died in 2021.

He contracted the coronavirus which she said “weakened him terribly”. He had been in a respite home having previously been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease, according to reports.

Maureen went on to later explain she had no idea when he contracted the virus, and told Daily Mail: “I said to Guido: ‘It’s time to go, you’ve got to let go,’ and I think for once in his life he actually did what I told him.” Maureen added: “My heart is cracking.”

Now, she starts a new chapter in her life. She first confirmed her engagement last year. Confessing to popping the question on the train, Maureen said in an an op-ed it was a spur-of-the-moment decision while travelling home from the launch of the Queen’s son, Tom Parker-Bowles’ latest cooking book,

She said: “Later that night my partner David and I decided to tell our children that, with a combined age of 156, we are going to get married.”

She continued that she had been “against the M word” but realised that it was the festival of Tu B’Av – a Jewish festival where a woman can ask a man to marry her.

Telling the story The Spectator, the actress went on: “Unable to resist the gag, I slid under the table separating us onto one knee and asked him for his hand. To my surprise and slight panic, he gave it.”

David and Maureen went on to reveal the news to her children on September 8, the birthday of her first love and husband the late Jack