A 31-year-old organ enthusiast who hit the headlines two weeks ago after marrying a 70-year-old grandmother, lived a secret double life as a transvestite called Sarah, it emerged yesterday.
Simon Martin, originally from Cradley Heath in Dudley, married pensioner Edna Townsend, amidst a storm of controversy concerning the couple age's gap at a ceremony at Weston-super-Mare register office at the beginning of July.
The pair met through their mutual love of Hammond Organs and despite the age gap, Simon, who had never had a girlfriend before, said it was love at first sight.
Simon, an organ player, who suffers from a severe hearing impediment, proposed to Edna under Weston-super-Mare pier on Valentine's Day this year.
But it has emerged that in his youth Simon lived a secret life as an avid cross-dresser called Sarah and still enjoys occasionally dressing up in his new wife's frocks to this day.
He said his love of crossdressing began in his midtwenties when he was living at home with his parents in the Midlands.
Simon said: "At the time I genuinely thought I was a transvestite. I thought I had an alter ego as such.
"I wore all sorts of things, everything from glamorous evening wear to everyday clothes."
He added that he now only puts on women's clothes in the privacy of his own home.
Speaking about her husband's cross dressing antics, grandmother-of-three Edna said: "If he wants to dress up in a green caterpillar suit with pink flip flops what does it matter. I don't give a monkey's.
"He lived with his parents for 30 years and did the teenage thing when he was 25 and developed much later. He was totally isolated."
The couple have a framed picture of Simon in make-up wearing one of Edna's dresses in the front room of their home in Worle, Somerset.
Simon and Edna discussed his taste for cross-dressing before they decided to get married.
He said he no longer thinks of himself as a strict transvestite, adding: "What I was actually was a cross-dresser. I enjoyed the feeling of clothing. It is not quite the same as a transvestite."
