Man who lost his wife in Omagh blast to remarry

A MAN whose wife was killed in the Omagh bomb atrocity is to marry the Romanian mother of a child he and his wife had tried to adopt.

Kevin Skelton, 50, will wed Maria Nedelcu at a register office in the Co Tyrone town next week after a lengthy battle with British Home Office officials. Ms Nedelcu, 39, has already moved to the North with two of her three daughters from her former home in Fagaras, central Romania.

The couple met when Mr Skelton, whose wife Mena, 49, died in the August 1998 Real IRA massacre, travelled to eastern Europe. He had gone to an orphanage where Ms Nedelcu’s middle daughter, Andrea, was staying.

The former lorry driver and his late wife had been charmed by the nine-year-old when she came to stay at their home in Drumquin, Co Tyrone, on a two-week relief holiday in 1997.

Neither were aware that her mother was still alive and they had discussed the possibility of adopting her before the bomb attack, Mr Skelton said.

But when he arrived at the orphanage after his wife’s death, he discovered Ms Nedelcu waiting for him, alarmed that he had come to take her child away. The factory worker had put her children into temporary care because she could not afford to look after them.

“From the day I saw Maria for the first time, something happened to me. I felt something for her the minute I saw her. But I didn’t say anything,” Mr Skelton said.

It was only after a series of trips to Romania that Ms Nedelcu finally wrote to him last September revealing her true feelings for him.

“It finished up saying, ‘If I’m wrong, I’m sorry and we’ll always remain friends’. I sat and read it about 20 times,” Mr Skelton said.

Since then, the father of four has proposed and brought Ms Nedelcu to the North on a six-month visa to acclimatise her to the new lifestyle.

Their marriage plans have been backed by his family and friends, although they have been forced to wade through red tape. Permission to get married was needed from Home Office authorities because Ms Nedelcu is from a non-EU country.

When his initial application was rejected, Mr Skelton was aided by SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan.

“Mark Durkan sent a letter back to the minister and it turned out he knew nothing about it. Some civil servant had dealt with it.

“They were embarrassed and I got a letter back from the Home Office saying they would give me a certificate to get married on compassionate grounds.”

Mr Skelton also revealed his own fight against the guilt he felt at falling in love. But he said: “I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself, and one of my daughters said if mummy could come back for five minutes, the first thing she would do would be to hit me a kick up the backside. She wasn’t a person who would want me sitting about moping.”

Mr Skelton said Ms Nedelcu had rescued him from a depression that had engulfed him since the bomb that claimed 29 lives.

“I have someone with me, someone who cares for me ... my life has changed completely.”

Ms Nedelcu’s daughter Andrea, now 17, is studying beauty therapy at Omagh College, and her youngest daughter, five-year-old Iulia, will attend the local primary school.

Ms Nedelcu praised her husband-to-be: “He’s kind and he shows me a lot of respect that I would not get back home.”