Loved ones will gather today to celebrate the irrepressible Linda Nolan's life —and what a life it was. The beloved singer and actress, often referred to as the 'Naughty Nolan', lived with incurable cancer in her final years but kept her sunny disposition right up until the end. Indeed, speaking previously with the Mirror, youngest sister Coleen spoke of how her final day with Linda, who died last month at the age of 65, had been filled with "love and laughter".

And it will be this incredible strength and humour that family, friends, and fans will today remember at Linda's funeral service at St. Paul’s Church, in the star's "spiritual home" of Blackpool. Following a cremation, it's been revealed that Linda's ashes will be buried with those of her late husband, Brian Hudson, with family members poignantly sharing how Linda will be "reunited with Brian once more, finally at peace and back in his loving embrace".

It was in Blackpool where The Nolans shot to fame as one of the most famous girl groups of all time, but it was in Linda's birthplace of Dublin that her star power began to shine. At the age of just three, Linda was already preparing to entertain an audience, proudly parading around in her mother's glittery stage stilettos - or her "hee-highs", as she called them. The pavement outside Linda's parents' Dublin council estate home served as her first ever stage, with the then-toddler belting out 'Molly Malone' at the top of her already powerful lungs. "What I lacked in years I more than made up for in style. And volume," she said. "Mum used to call me our street's alarm clock. Performing was what I did before I even knew what performing meant.".

This marked the beginning of a rollercoaster life that was anything but ordinary, marked in turn by glittering highs, and devastating lows. Linda was the "blingy Nolan", she once claimed with a laugh. And she kept performing until the very end. Until the grand show of life that she adored so passionately could no longer, despite her monumental efforts, go on. The irrepressible Nolan sister, who moved to the seaside town with her family as a child, rose to stardom with her siblings as part of The Nolan Sisters in the 1970s, amassing global fans and going onto sell 30million records with hits including I’m In The Mood For Dancing, Spirit, Body and Soul, and Gotta Pull Myself Together.

But it was for the honest, open approach she took to discussing her health battles after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer twenty years ago, in 2005, that she came to be equally if not more, admired. Over the years, she helped raise more than £20million for breast cancer and mental health charities, as well as Samaritans. The disease was to return as secondary cancer in 2017, and in early 2023 Linda revealed tumours had been discovered in her brain. Becoming a Daily Mirror columnist at that time and charting weekly her ongoing treatment and fifth loss of her hair, always with a laugh, she was praised for her unflinching honesty, which helped others living with the disease.

One well-wisher at hospital once praised her admiringly for "doing a Linda Nolan" and inspiring his own wife. It made her chuckle - but impelled her, in turn, to keep talking, confronting the end of her life on her own terms. "I think everybody's journey - I hate the word - is different. But if there is anything I can say that can help someone, I will," she said. "I have my moments when I slide down the wall in a heap," she added. "I'm frightened to cry in case I don't stop sometimes… But I'll take anything, I'll try anything, to stay alive.".

Born on February 23, 1959, Linda followed eldest brother Tommy, now 75, sisters Anne, now 74, Denise, 72, and Maureen, 70, and her second brother, Brian, 69, into the Nolan family. Sister Bernie, who passed away in 2013 after her own cancer diagnosis, followed, and finally the baby, Coleen, now 59. Her father, Tommy, and mother, Maureen, were both singers and toured pubs and clubs together. In 1962, the family moved to Blackpool, driven by the desire to find more work, and soon the family formed the Singing Nolans, the older siblings accompanying their parents on stage. Aged five, Linda joined them after begging to take part.

"I could belt out a song like a kid twice my age," she described. Bernie soon joined too, and eventually Coleen, aged four. Linda's childhood solo was Shirley Bassey's Big Spender - the irony of which wasn't lost on the star who, even in her final months, couldn't resist an online shopping spree, even when money was tight. Despite late nights and bleary mornings at school, which she left early, she adored her family and their shows. Money was scant at home - her mother would sometimes skip the stew she made her brood so there was enough to go around - but Linda recalls "a typical Irish mother" who "totally spoilt" her kids.