Linda Nolan in her own words: How she took on cancer in feisty Daily Mirror columns
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Linda Nolan laughed when she realised she would begin her very first dispatch as a new Daily Mirror columnist on the subject not of herself, but her very famous little sister, Coleen. The Loose Women panelist announced that week she had discovered she had common skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma. Linda, who adored her siblings, was of course worried, but immediately wheeled out her characteristic dry wit.
“Upstaged, every time!” she cackled in the Irish lilt that had persisted from her early years in Dublin. She generally followed poignant news with a side dollop of humour; it was her way, her whole family’s way, she explained. It was July 2023 and Linda had discovered in March her secondary breast cancer, first discovered in her hip in 2017, and then her liver in 2020, had spread to her brain. It was nearly 20 years since she had first been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, and she initially felt she’d reached the end of the road.
She was terrified, discussing how she’d lost little sister Bernie when her cancer also spread to her brain. She felt like she was mirroring her. Yet the idea of writing a weekly column about her treatment and progress lifted her spirits. Linda would be the first to laugh that she enjoyed talking about herself - she liked ‘celebrity’. But it was more than that. She genuinely felt better for sharing what she was going through and perhaps giving others a lift along the way.
The columns which followed were without fail funny, even when they were desperately poignant. Some weeks she admitted she was “under the grey cloud” and had “had a few days in bed”, “not wanting to go out”. But even then, she could underline her emotion with a laugh.
