A devoted couple, who were married for 65 years, have died within hours of each other on the same hospital ward.

Joyce Hanley, 84, who was being treated for a liver tumour at Bradford Royal Infirmary died peacefully a few hours after her family broke the news that her husband Terry, also 84, had died from pneumonia.

The couple were being cared for in different bays on ward 30, said their son David Hanley, 65.

He said his parents had been inseparable until his father’s bad health meant he had to move into a care home last year. Until then Mrs Hanley had cared for him at their home in Low Moor, Bradford.

Mr Hanley had cheated death 30 years ago after a tipper wagon he was driving crashed into a low bridge, breaking his back and leaving him confined to a wheelchair.

His son said: “In a strange way it’s a happy release for them both really and the fact they both went on the same day on the same ward is a comfort because they were together then and they are now.”

The teenage sweethearts had met when Mr Hanley was on his milk round, they went on to marry and moved to Allerton in 1956.

Mr Hanley worked for a haulage company and his wife had a hairdressers before they moved to Thornbury where he was transport manager for Associated Weavers in the city and she ran a fruit shop in the 1970s.

Then they moved to Queensbury and for a time Mrs Hanley ran a craft shop at Piece Hall, Halifax. They later lived in Wibsey and eventually moved to Low Moor where Mrs Hanley stayed until taking ill. Doctors had diagnosed a liver tumour two weeks before she died.

Her husband had been living at Springfield Care Home, off Halifax Road, Buttershaw.

The couple had another son Dennis, who pre-deceased them nine years ago, and five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Their funeral will take place next Friday at 1.20pm at Scholemoor Crematorium.