EXCLUSIVE
Status Quo star John Coghlan has shared an emotional photograph of tragic Linda Nolan with her late husband Brian taken at his wedding.
Drummer John, 78, posted the picture taken at his marriage ceremony to wife Gillie writing: “So sad to hear of the death of Linda Nolan (Hudson), here on the left (with her beloved Brian) at our wedding in 1982.”
Linda died on Wednesday aged 65 after she contracted double pneumonia, requiring her to be rushed to hospital.
A statement from the star’s manager, Dermot McNamara, confirmed that the star had passed away with her sisters by her side. Linda had been living with an incurable but treatable cancer before her death, but she had previously lost two people to the disease, her sister Bernie in 2013 and before that, her husband, Brian Hudson, in 2007.
The couple tied the knot on May 7 with John turning up late to the ceremony at Marylebone Road Registry Office after being taken for a pre-nuptials lunch at Claridges where “one bottle of champagne followed another”.
Linda and Brian were bemused guests along with other members of The Nolan sisters who mingled with Roxy Music and Coronation stars including Geoff Hughes who played layabout Eddie Yates as Gille was forced to summon Quo’s chauffeur to drive her around London and find the missing bridegroom before whisking him back to tie the knot.
The subsequent reception was staged in the Art Deco room at the swanky The Savoy Hotel where an elderly pianist was commandeered and handed sheet music of Status Quo hits to try and play on his grand piano.
Linda and Brian had themselves married the previous year, with Linda’s sisters serving as bridesmaids. The pair first met in 1977 when he served as the tour manager for the Nolan Sisters, and quickly became inseparable. Brian sadly died at the age of 60 in 2007, as a result of skin cancer and liver failure but they remained good friends of the Coghlans.
Former music industry PA Gillie, to whom John has now been married to for 42 years, described her wedding dress as “the full Princess Diana-Scarlett O’Hara frock” and had demanded the wedding be held in London even though the couple had moved to what the described as “the least rock’n’roll
Place in Britain” – The Isle of Man.
The wedding came just months after founding member John quit the chart-topping rockers on the eve of their 20th anniversary celebrations – and the fallout meant that Quo stars Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt snubbed their invitations whilst bass player Alan Lancaster declined as he had moved to Australia.
John’s decision meant he missed out on being a part of history as a member of the first rock band to perform a concert for royalty when the Rockin’ All Over The World hitmakers staged a special concert for the future King’s then fledgling Prince’s Trust charity which was attended by the man himself.
He was replaced on the drum stool by Pete Kircher before the band temporarily split up in 1984.
John told the Daily Express in 2022 that he was “very hurt” not to have been invited to perform at Live Aid in July 1985 but he finally returned to the Quo drum stool in 2013 for a reunion tour of the original ‘Frantic Four line-up which concluded the following year.
Francis Rossi remains the last surviving original member of Status Quo but last year’s hufely successful world tour appears to have been their last with the band recently auctioning off much of their stage equipment and Rossi telling the Daily Express he doesn’t envisage the band ever touring again.