PHIL Spencer has released a heartbreaking statement following his parent’s fatal car accident.
The Location, Location, Location host’s father Richard, known to friends and family as David, 89, and mother Anne, 82, passed away after their car veered into a river near their family farm.
David and Anne tragically passed away on Friday
Phil with his mother Anne
Presenter Phil took to Instagram to share a photo of his mum and dad and wrote: “Very sadly both of my amazing parents died on Friday.
“As a family we are all trying to hold onto the fact Mum and Dad went together and that neither will ever have to mourn the loss of the other one. Which is a blessing in itself.”
Phil then opened up about his mum and dad’s health, revealing Anne had Parkinson’s and David suffered from Dementia.
He continued: “Although they were both on extremely good form in the days before (hence the sudden idea to go out to lunch), Mums Parkinson’s and Dads Dementia had been worsening and the long term future was set to be a challenge.
“So much so that Mum said to me only a week ago that she had resigned to thinking “now it looks like we will probably go together”. And so they did.
“That was what God had planned for them – and it was a good plan.”
Sharing heartbreaking details of the accident, Phil said: “The car, going very slowly, toppled over a bridge on the farm drive, upside down into the river. There were no physical injuries and I very much doubt they would have even fought it – they would have held hands under the water and quietly slipped away.
“Their carer was in the car and managed to climb out of a back window so the alarm was raised quite quickly.
“As many farmers do – my brother had a penknife and so was able to cut the seat belts – he pulled them out of the river but they never regained consciousness.
“Although desperately sad and shocked beyond all belief – all family are clear that if there can ever be such a thing as having a “good end” – this was it.”
Phil added: “It feels horrendous right now, but after almost 60 years of marriage – to die together on the farm they so loved will, I know, be a comfort in the future.
“Mum Dad are together which is precisely where they would have wanted to be.”
David and Anne were on their way to a local pub for lunch on Friday when their car veered off the access road into a shallow tributary river running through their estate.
Police and the fire brigade raced to the scene while an air ambulance landed on the farm at Littlebourne, near Canterbury, Kent.
Richard and Anne were pulled out and taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead and she later died.
Last night Phil was with older brother Robert and younger sisters Caryn and Helen.
Phil, who lives in Hampshire with wife Fiona and their two children, has previously spoken fondly of being a farmer’s son, and having an idyllic childhood.
He has a holiday cottage on the site, which his father ran before handing over to eldest son Robert.
