AN ISLE of Wight couple described their friend Paul O’Grady, who sadly passed away yesterday (Tuesday, March 29), as a ‘kind-hearted lovely, genuine guy’ and reminisced over memories they shared.

Sara and Dennis Causier met Paul for the first time nearly 20 years ago while at a cocktail party hosted by their close friend Cilla Black in Barbados.

Speaking to the County Press, Sara remembers when Paul went to stay with Cilla twice at her penthouse on the Caribbean island.

She said: “We ended up seeing Cilla more or less every other day, so we ended up taking Paul out for dinner with us, with Cilla and Cliff [Richard], and we had such a lovely time.

Isle of Wight County Press: Sara and Dennis went to Sir Cliff Richard's 70th birthday party with Paul O'GradySara and Dennis went to Sir Cliff Richard's 70th birthday party with Paul O'Grady (Image: Sara Causier)

“At the end of the first holiday, Paul gave me his mobile number and said, ‘I’m on WhatsApp, we’ll keep in touch’, so we did.

“Jokingly, Cilla said she could actually marry Paul because she felt safe and protected.”

Sometime later, Cilla invited the couple to her apartment in Westminster for a cottage pie and champagne party.

“It was such a lovely night. There was this photograph in her kitchen, which was of her and her husband Bobby with Paul, all standing on the top of an open-top car with their arms in the air. They were such, such fabulous friends.”

Sara explained that it was Paul who first told her that Cilla had passed away in 2015.

Returning home after visiting her son in London, she realised she had missed a call from Paul and called him back before he shared the sad news.

The couple moved to the Isle of Wight from Majorca in 2016, becoming friends with Mountbatten CEO Nigel Hartley. Sara asked whether he would like her to set up a black-tie dinner in aid of the hospice.

She rang Paul to tell him that she was planning the dinner and asked whether he would like to stay with them for the weekend and speak at the event, to which he replied, ‘yes I would’.

He looked in his diary and realised he could not make it as he was filming in India, and at the time of the next event, he was busy with pantomime.

The last message the pair shared was at New Year, wishing each other the best for the year ahead.

Sara said: “He was lovely, he was so nice. Paul was a kind-hearted lovely, genuine guy.”