A SHOW choir manager described as his wife’s “rock” passed away on their 50th wedding anniversary.

Chris Harrod died peacefully at Great Western Hospital shortly before the New Year – a day after his 78th birthday.

The Haydon Wick man, who spent a career in accountancy, was the husband of Kentwood Show Choir founder Sheila Harrod. He was the choir’s manager.

Sheila, 73, said: “I couldn’t have had on this earthly plane a better rock. He was a very, very good man. I couldn’t have had a better husband.”

The pair met in 1964 at McIllroys ballroom – where then tearaway Salvation Army band member Sheila would dance away her Saturday nights.

“Chris’s fiancée had just finished with him. He met me on the rebound,” she laughed.

Handsome Chris, with his Ford Corsair and dapper suit, caught Sheila’s eye. “He was the perfect gentleman,” she said.

They married three years later, in a ceremony that made it on to TV news. Sheila conducted the Kentwood Show Choir – by then three years old – at the Immanuel Church wedding.

“Chris was looking on so proudly,” said Sheila, who will conduct the choir again at next week’s funeral. “I hope he will be looking down.”

The pair never had children, but devoted their lives to music.

Chris, who ended his career with electricity firm Square D, played the role of choir manager and bookkeeper, organising international tours to Europe and America.

One of these trips almost ended in tragedy – after Chris sliced his toe on a bottle buried in the mud of a German lake.

Sheila said: “We were miles from anywhere.”

They found an army truck able to take him to hospital, where his injured toe was stitched. “I can see Chris now, his foot hanging out the back of an army van,” Sheila said. “He could never feel that part of his toe again.”

Chris, a member of Swindon Rotary Club, was brought around to choir music by his wife.

But his first love was big band showstoppers and jazz, listening to greats like Glenn Miller.

Sheila said: “He went to a big jazz festival before we were married and in this greasy Joe’s he met Ella Fitzgerald. She’d come in for her dinner.”

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Chris’ health had declined over the last couple of years.

He was in hospital battling pneumonia when he passed away on December 30 – on the couple’s golden wedding anniversary.

Sheila said: “He was so ill that week. It seemed as though he wanted to last so we could tell everyone we were together for 50 years.”

A service of celebration will be held at Kingsdown Crematorium today. Kentwood Show Choir will be singing Chris’s Glenn Miller favourite, It Don’t Mean A Thing.

Donations will go to Parkinson’s UK.