He was Queen\u2019s flamboyant frontman. She was his shy girlfriend, dreaming of marriage until they both realised he preferred men. Thirty-five years after his death, in the week he would have turned 80, Mary Austin talks about their unbreakable bond<\/p>\n
There were four silver trunks in Mary Austin\u2019s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn\u2019t opened since. It was too painful. Almost 40 years on, in 2022, she opened one. It was crammed with lyrics from songs written by Freddie Mercury \u2013 Don\u2019t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, We Are the Champions and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody. She shut the case. It was still too painful.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say I was overwhelmed is an understatement,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t look at the lyrics. I felt as I did when I originally packed them \u2013 that they were his personal belongings and I was being offered an opportunity to delve into them, and I couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d Eventually she asked her two sons to sift through the treasures on her behalf.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/88ed2dce39284e7e68020ba10a16f9e8adfb4145\/0_618_3639_2912\/master\/3639.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=f91ebca2c26db3943f55f178faeda4b5\" "\\"The")
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