Actress Dame Maureen Lipman is getting married again after proposing to her partner, David Turner, on Tu B’Av, otherwise known as the Jewish Festival of Love. 

Writing in the Spectator, the award-winning actress, told readers: “In truth I had been rather against the ‘M’ word, but on a train coming back from Edinburgh he mentioned that it was the minor festival of Tu B’Av – a day when a Jewish woman can ask a man to marry her.

"Unable to resist the gag, I slid under the table separating us on to one knee and asked him for his hand. To my surprise and slight panic, he gave it.”

Lipman, 78, first made her relationship with Turner, a business consultant, known a year ago, when she told the Sunday Express that she was bringing her “gentleman friend David” to the National Television Awards.

In November, the couple attended Oldie of The Year Awards, where Lipman, referring to Turner, said: “That’s my significant other.”

Lipman was married to playwright Jack Rosenthal for over 30 years until his death from cancer in 2004. The couple had two children, writers Amy and Adam Rosenthal. Lipman was more recently in a 13-year relationship with retired computer technician Guido Castro, who died in 2021 after contracting Covid.

Turner, 78, a co-founder of LA Fitness Group and life president of South Hampstead Synagogue in north-west London, was married to social worker, counsellor and Jewish Women’s Aid chair Frances Turner, who died in 2022. The couple had three children together.