Bonnie Tyler returns to Mumbles for final journey as thousands line streets

Legendary singer Bonnie Tyler has made a final journey to her Mumbles home, with thousands of emotional fans lining the streets to pay their respects.

The Total Eclipse of the Heart singer died "unexpectedly" on 8 July, aged 75, at a hospital in Portugal.

At the time, tributes poured in from a host of friends and stars including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart.

Despite Tyler's career taking her all over the world, she has been described by those living in the coastal suburb of Mumbles as a "Swansea girl through and through", and someone who "never forgot where she came from".

Huge crowds turned out as her coffin was driven through the place she called home.

As the procession began, Total Eclipse of the Heart could be heard playing on the busy street, as crying fans broke into applause.

The coffin was draped in the Welsh flag and accompanied by a framed photograph of the singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan.

Fans threw flowers on to the hearse as it drove down Newton Road.

Thousands of fans followed the coffin as it made its way through the street, continuing to walk behind it until the end of the road.

"She was lovely - just like a friend you'd known all of your life," said Angela Powell who was among the first to arrive.

"My mam used to cut Gaynor's husband Bobbie's hair and so he would let her into the nightclubs [which he managed] in the town without having to queue.

"She actually met my father in one of them, The Townsend, where Bonnie would regularly perform.

"My father is unwell so my mam is home looking after him and can't be here, so I wanted to come on behalf of us all to thank her.

"I've met her a few times - in Marks and Spencer and on a flight to Portugal."

The celebration of Tyler's life will continue from midday on Monday, at St Mary's Church in Swansea.

She'll then return to her hometown in Neath Port Talbot, travelling through the village at about 13:20 BST before a private family service.

A funeral notice from William Pressdee Funeralcare, on behalf of Tyler's family, said she would be remembered as "a warm, generous artist whose music touched generations and continues to fill dance floors and karaoke booths around the world".

It's a Heartache, her country-pop ballad released the same year, reached number four on the UK singles chart and number three on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Her biggest hit, the rockier Total Eclipse of the Heart, arrived six years later in 1983 - this time topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

In doing so she became the first Welsh person to score a number one hit in the US.

She received a Grammy nomination for the hit, and two further nominations for the album Faster Than the Speed of Night and the single Here She Comes.