Sir Richard Branson says he is heartbroken following the sad passing of his wife, Joan Templeman.<\/p>\n
Joan, who was born in Glasgow, shared two children with the Virgin Group founder.<\/p>\n
The couple married in 1989 and have been together ever since.<\/p>\n
(Image: Picture from PA Wire)<\/p>\n
Sir Richard announced the news on social media on Tuesday evening, as he referred to his wife as his \u201cbest friend\u201d and \u201cguiding light\u201d.<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old wrote: \u201cHeartbroken to share that Joan, my wife and partner for 50 years, has passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was the most wonderful mum and grandmum our kids and grandkids could have ever wished for.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was my best friend, my rock, my guiding light, my world.<\/p>\n
\u201cLove you forever, Joan x.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an article written for the Virgin website celebrating her 70th birthday, the entrepreneur previously said he fell in love with Templeman \u201cfrom the first moment I saw her\u201d as she worked in a bric-a-brac shop in London\u2019s Westbourne Grove.<\/p>\n
Sir Richard recalled he had to \u201cpersistently hang around the shop and buy countless objects\u201d, including an old advertising sign, before the pair started to date.<\/p>\n
In the piece, the businessman said his wife was a \u201cvery private person\u201d who had \u201calways stood by me mentally, emotionally and spiritually\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Richard Branson says he is heartbroken following the sad passing of his wife, Joan Templeman. Joan, who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,186734,186732,712,186733,186731,16,15,1536],"class_list":{"0":"post-593633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-guiding-light","12":"tag-joan-templeman","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-sir-richard","15":"tag-sir-richard-branson","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-virgin-group"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115612535021653383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}