Anna-Louise’s first husband Stuart died alongside the couple’s son Fraser in a crash before Christmas in 2015, with her second partner Zach Stubbings dying in January this year from blood cancer
A woman has spoken of a life marred by tragedy after she lost two of her husbands before turning 50.
Anna-Louise Stubbings is just 49 years old and has been widowed twice after her first husband Stuart was killed alongside their son when they were hit by a driver around Christmas 2015.
Anna-Louise and her daughter Elizabeth – who has lost her dad and stepdad – were also in the car after attending a Christmas party together. The mother was torn between being at the bedside of her husband or her son as they both tragically passed away.
After Fraser’s death, his organs were donated and used to save four lives. Anna-Louise set up organ donation awareness charity, Believe, where she shared advice for people going through sudden bereavement.
While grieving, she met an RAF airman called Zachary Stubbings while picking up a Fraser Bear – which is the charity’s mascot. Zachary had gone through a stem cell transplant as part of treatment for blood cancer, reports Wales Online.
Getting into another relationship after losing Stuart would have been a big call anyway but knowing about Zach’s illness Anna-Louise did have to take some time and did initially end their blossoming relationship before resuming it with some gentle encouragement from Elizabeth who took Zach to one side and said it was about time he asked her mum to be his girlfriend.
Anna-Louise said: “I remember my brother saying to me: ‘You knew what you were signing up for’ and I don’t think I did. He didn’t look ill, he didn’t look unhealthy. It was a hidden disease and I think we both made that decision [to get together] because you don’t know – you could just be crossing a road.”
Anna-Louise previously said she felt “another piece of my heart has grown for Zach” after the previous losses she experienced.
He was an integral part of now 13-year-old Elizabeth’s upbringing and it was her who was credited with Zach proposing to her mum in Castell Coch in November 2019.
A few months later, when Covid came, Zach was on the shielding list and he caught Covid early on which was a huge scare to them all. However he recovered and they set about making memories together.
“He was so intelligent on both levels. So emotionally intelligent, I think because he’d been through so much trauma with his search and rescue job and he wasn’t threatened by the fact that I had this huge love for Stu and Fraser.
“I thought he was just so interesting, it was never dull, and he was the best stepfather that we could have had,” said Anna-Louise.
“The last few months I have all this guilt for Elizabeth just thinking: ‘Should I have done that?’ For her she’s lost two fathers.”
But Anna-Louise wouldn’t have swapped the time they all had together.
“For me I didn’t really envisage being 49 and twice widowed. I didn’t think it would be this way. I think we thought that because he was under the [care of a] haematologist that we would have a lot more warning or notice or more times to get treatment or whatever but sadly that wasn’t the plan,” she said.
They both knew he was ill and there were repeated scares but Anna-Louise said they did everything they could to create memories together in whatever time they had.
December 6, which was the date her son and first husband had died was now also the date Zach went into a hospice. He died a month later in January 2025.
Zach had previously been a winch man on search and rescue helicopters flying from RAF Valley on Anglesey and had served in the Falklands, Hong Kong, and Cyprus. He was working as an RAF instructor when he was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012 and was medically discharged from the forces in 2015.
But with colleagues also diagnosed with cancer he spotted a pattern and uncovered documents showing concerns had been expressed about the safety of the now-retired Sea King helicopters since the 1990s.
A number of troops who flew in Sea King, Wessex, and more recently Puma and Chinook helicopters had been diagnosed with cancers such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, lung cancer, throat cancer, and testicular cancer after being unwittingly exposed to toxic exhaust fumes and sick personnel claimed the Ministry of Defence (MOD) did nothing about it.
A civil suit is now being pursued by more than 100 other military personnel. As well as being one of the people offering support to those involved Zach was working behind the scenes to lobby for better screening so that if cancer was found treatment could be given earlier.