SINGER James Morrison has been left devastated by the sudden death of his wife Gill Catchpole who he met well before his rise to fame.
James, 39, met Gill, 45, when he was a teenager and she moved in as a lodger into his mother’s Gloucestershire home.
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Gill, who was found dead on Friday, lived there alongside her boyfriend John, and a young James while he pursued his music career.
Love blossomed after Gill separated from her boyfriend, and James provided comfort.
The couple connected through music, because Gill’s dad was also a musician, and he would later share that she was not just his first love, but also the only love of his life.
In a 2021 interview, James told The Sun how how he did his best to impress Gill by learning songs from Stevie Wonder’s Key Of Life album.
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The Brit Award winner told The Sun: “When she moved in, I started singing all the songs off that album to her.
“I was playing all of that stuff on the acoustic guitar. So, it reminds me of when I met her and me just serenading the corridor hoping she’d pop out.
He sang his way into her heart via Stevie Wonder by serenading Gill.
He added on Irish television in 2022: “I serenaded her in the corridor hoping she’d pop out. I was always singing!
“She moved in as a lodger with her boyfriend. To my mum’s house. He was massive. He was 6ft and I was 17 (years old).
Laughing, James added: “So I was 17 and he was like 32 or something. And he was 6ft 2inch. I’m 5ft 10!”
The couple exchanged vows in 2012 and welcomed two daughters, 15-year-old Elsie and 5-year-old Ada-Rose.
Gill, owner of successful café Cotswold Sandwich Box in Whitminster, provided stability James as he continued to write music and his career took off.
He said in 2022: “You have to be very strong to be in this business, you have to be grounded in yourself as a person and do it beause you love it. Because there’s times when no one cares if you’re in the charts or the album you’re doing.
“Do what you want to do that is going to help you enjoy life. It takes a lot of hard work, I sacrificed a lot of time in my twenties, my mates were going out drinking and I was in the studio. But it worked out, it doesn’t always work out that way. I’m lucky.”
The star dedicated his 2019 album You’re Stronger Than You Know to Gill, following their younger daughter being born 13 weeks premature.
He told The Sun that year that they faced numerous hurdles to ensure the tot’s health and bring her home safely.
Even dubbing Gill his “hero,” James portrayed their love story as a “little fairy tale.”
The mother of two was discovered dead at her home and police responded to the scene, with her café remaining shuttered over the weekend.
Local residents have expressed their shock, describing James and Gill as a “lovely couple” with a “beautiful family.”
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