Singer Linda Nolan ‘laughing and joking’ in final days, says sister Denise
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Singer Linda Nolan was “laughing and joking” in her final days before she died aged 65, her sister Denise has said. The Irish star, who rose to fame in family group The Nolans with sisters Coleen, Maureen, Bernie, Denise and Anne, died on Wednesday surrounded by family after being admitted to hospital in Blackpool with double pneumonia.
Nolan had long been a campaigner and fundraiser for cancer awareness, having been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. The Dublin-born singer was given the all-clear in 2011, but in 2017 was told she had secondary breast cancer which later spread to her brain.
“She’d been laughing and joking, although the medical team had told her she had to stay quiet to let her treatment do its job,” her sister Denise said in a statement first reported in the Sunday Mirror. “Everyone was being quietly optimistic as she’d seemed so cheerful.
“Then at 3.30am on Tuesday, we got the dreaded call: ‘Get to the hospital ASAP.'”. Nolan’s manager Dermot McNamara confirmed she was admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital last weekend with double pneumonia, before going into a coma and having end-of-life care on Tuesday, and dying on Wednesday “with her loving siblings by her bedside”.
Denise recalled how Nolan was taken into the hospital after she was “struggling to breathe” but the singer was still the “model patient” and was “apologising for any inconvenience” to her sister and the hospital staff. After Nolan slipped into unconsciousness, Denise recalled that her sister still “wouldn’t give up” and friends and family sat holding her hand for 36 hours.
