80 Saturday April 9 2022 | the times
Register
The perfect gift
for new parents
‘She has her father’s eyes
and face shape but her
mother’s lips and nose’
Celebrate the arrival of
a newborn in Readers’
Lives, a service in
contracted tributesCall 020 7782 5583 or email
[email protected]50%
discount for
subscribersPIPPA SUZANNE DRACOTT WAS BORN ON MAY 28, 2020,
AT BROOMFIELD HOSPITAL IN CHELMSFORD, ESSEX,
TO CLAIRE, 30, AND GARY DRACOTT, 30isolated with her sisters. “We are
together 24/7 or we are not together
at all,” he says.
They had performed at the Barns at
Redcoats, a wedding venue in
Hitchin, which they booked for their
wedding. Initially, it was to take place
in January last year but had to be
postponed because of Covid.
They were legally married at
Hatfield Register Office last April.
Chevone wore a white blazer dress;
Rob had a teal suit. Only their
mothers were allowed to join them as
witnesses because of restrictions. “It
really hit me,” she says. “I’m going to
be someone’s wife.”
Their fathers joined them
afterwards for a chilly celebratory
drink outside, in keeping with
restrictions. At the time, only groups
of six were allowed to gather. When
their parents left, Chevone’s sisters
and their families turned up. “Rob has
married three women because we are
so close,” she says.
Chevone moved in with Rob and
his mother, and they are looking to
buy a house in Manchester. They
invited 60 guests to their ceremony in
November at Redcoats and another40 for the evening celebrations, which
took place in a grade II listed barn
and was conducted by the pastor from
the Pentecostal church that Chevone
attended as a child.
She walked in with her father to Joe
Cocker’s You Are So Beautiful. Her
mother gave a Bible reading. The
pastor’s wife led worship songs and
sang a solo. The newlyweds walked
out to Kirk Franklin’s Love Theory.
For his speech, Rob played the
piano and sang Allen Stone’s Give You
Blue. Chevone’s sisters’ speech also
turned into a musical performance.
The couple’s first dance was to Jamie
Lidell’s I Live to Make You Smile. A
Jamaican food truck served evening
snacks in a nod to Chevone’s heritage.
She has only been to Jamaica once
but it is somewhere they plan to take
their children one day.If you would like to feature a
wedding or engagement or the
birth of a child on these pages,
email: [email protected]
thetimes.co.uk/static/terms-and-conditionsChevone met Rob when she
auditioned as a singer for his band,
The London Soul Section. He played
the piano as she sang Etta James’s At
Last. “She blew me away,” he says.
They knew of each other as
teenagers through her older sister and
his older brother, who were music
students at the same college. Chevone
had been part of a gospel group,
Tehillah 3, with her two older sisters
from the age of seven. Rob designed
their CD cover.
When Chevone joined The London
Soul Section in 2013, she called her
sister to say she had got the job. She
also mentioned that she really fancied
Rob. He was in a relationship at the
time and recalls her being quite shy
initially but they became best friends.
The six-member band perform at
weddings and private gigs. In 2016,
Chevone and Rob were both single at
the same time, and would return to
their family homes. His father
wondered aloud why they were just
friends. “Everyone else saw it before
we did,” she says.
After a year as a couple, Chevone
left the band to take the lead female
role in the Michael Jackson musical
Thriller Live, followed by a job as a
backing singer in the musical This is
Elvis. They were both touring abroad
and hardly saw one another for two
years. “It was challenging after being
stuck together like Velcro,” she says.
“It really solidified that this
could work. Our priority
is that we both are
doing what we love
in life.”
They describe
one another as
hard-working
but also at ease.
“He is just such
a nice, lovely,
generous, kind
human being,”
she says. He
describes her as
supportive and full
of love. “Chevone is
the quiet, subdued one
who will sit back and watch the
situation. I am the one who always
talks. I want to be friends with
everyone.”
In 2019 Chevone rejoined the band.
“I get to travel the world with her
doing what we love to do most,” Rob
says. “What more can you ask for?”
Marriages and engagements
‘Everyone saw it coming before we did’
She bought a house in Potters Bar
with her sisters, their husbands and
two children, as a way of getting on
the property ladder. A month later,
Rob, who is not a morning person,
knocked on their door at 8am
with gifts for her 30th
birthday that he insisted
she open. It was a pair
of Dr Martens with a
ring box inside. He
went down on one
knee to propose.
“We had seen so
many people
stressing over
weddings and how
to get it perfect,” he
says. “We just
wanted to enjoy it.”
They decided not to live
together until they were
married. “To save something
for marriage,” she says.
They had found their venue and
Chevone had chosen a wedding dress
when they embarked to work on a
Caribbean cruise ship in January- Then Covid struck and they
ended up marooned at sea for 80
days. On their return, Chevone
Chevone and Rob walked out to Kirk Franklin’s Love Theory. The celebrations featured a Jamaican food truck, belowNew readers
As a naval
intelligence
officer on board
HMS Defender,
Jon was out at
sea for most of
Kate’s pregnancy.
The week of the
birth was
“stressful”: due to
him catching Covid and the ship’s
tight schedule, it was hit or miss that
he would be there for the arrival of
his first child. Thankfully, he was
given special leave to fly home from
Guam and was able to enjoy a blissful
week with his son before being posted
back abroad. Jon played bass guitar in
his ship’s band and enjoyed playing
the ukulele to Edward after the birth.
The other member of the family is
a labrador called Jack who, though
hesitant at first, soon got used to the
newcomer. Jon and Kate are looking
forward to their first trip as a family
to Center Parcs in September and are
hoping to take Edward to meet his
uncle in Northern Ireland.Iain and Rachel
wanted to choose
a name that
reflected their
Christian faith.
They called their
first daughter
Phoebe, an
influential female
church leader,
and chose the name Grace so that “the
grace of the Lord would follow her all
of her days”, says Rachel. Grace was
christened in the same church in
which her parents got married.
Unlike with her first birth, Rachel
chose to have an epidural. She finds
the stigma around pain medication
inexplicable. “I wasn’t going for any
medals,” she says, “and it was the best
decision I’ve ever made, because it
meant I could really enjoy meeting my
daughter.” Like her father, who is a
politician and an extrovert, Grace is
bubbly and sociable. She loves nothing
more than to create a “tsunami” in the
bathtub with her sister.Chevone Stewart, 32, a singer, and
Rob Wilcox, 35, a singer and
musician, were married on November
12, 2021, at the Barns at Redcoats, in
Hitchin, Hertfordshire
Grace Norma Bott was born on
October 2, 2021, at Calderdale Royal
Hospital in Halifax to Rachel, 36, and
Dr Iain Bott, 42Edward Robert Laverick was born
on September 16, 2021, at the Queen
Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, to
Kathleen, 36, and Jonathan
Laverick, 35THE WARDETTE STUDIO