ILKLEY MP Ann Cryer will marry her long-term fiance, John Hammersley, at a low-key ceremony in Westminster this weekend.

Mrs Cryer and Mr Hammersley, a retired vicar, were originally due to marry at St Mary's Undercroft Crypt Chapel, at the House of Commons, on September 8, 2001.

But the ceremony had to be called off after Mr Hammersley was found to have bowel cancer during an emergency appendix operation that year. He has been battling the disease, and receiving chemotherapy and other treatment, ever since.

The couple will now wed at the same venue this Saturday, almost two years to the day after their original date.

Mrs Cryer said: "John is undergoing chemotherapy at the moment and while he's reasonably well he's not up to coping with a big crowd, so we will just have our children and grandchildren with us.

"It's going to be a very small affair with a lunch there afterwards."

Mrs Cryer, whose MP husband Bob Cryer died in a car crash in 1994, met Mr Hammersley while in South Africa seven years ago.