Addison Lee drivers in job rights victory
cancer and underwent chemotherapy and a mastectomy. Yet she charted her experiences in frank, funny and heartfelt broadcasts, which won huge acclaim for breaking taboos.
In an equally honest way Steve tells Lauren Mahon and Deborah James, Rachael’s friends and co-presenters, about the gruelling days leading up to her death at home in Cheshire on September 5.
He says: “Because we didn’t talk about it, I had absolutely no idea what physically was going to happen to Rachael over those four or five days where she was getting more and more sick.
“Luckily I was in touch with Dr Kathryn Mannix, who has been on the pod and written a great book about it.
“But even with that, just the whole physical process, because we are scared about talking about the whole thing, I didn’t have any idea what was going to happen. I didn’t feel like anyone really explained how hard and demanding that last four or five days were going to be.
“I might be wrong, but I just feel that if Rachael had known how hard it was going to be she might have wanted to go into a hospice or something.
“I just don’t know that either of us understood how tough those last days were going to be; how demanding on her it was, only having me looking after her, and how demanding it was on me.”
He goes on: “I found it quite hard in the day or two after she died to remember what she sounded like normally, and even what she looked like just sitting next to me on the sofa.
“It was probably three or four days, when the storm had subsided somewhat, that those memories started coming back and it was a bit of a crash.”
Asked how he is coping, Steve says: STEVE BLAND ON HOW TOUGH FINAL DAYS WERE “I’m OK. Good days and bad days, as you can imagine. Plenty of challenges.
“You don’t really know how you’re going to be when something like this happens. I guess, because we had a big lead up to it, two years of her being ill, you do kind of think, ‘What’s it going to be like?’
“But then it’s really nothing like that at all, nothing like you imagine.
“Trying to be as positive as I can on the good days, then recognise the bad ones and have a little cry then.”
In her final months, Rachael had been writing a memoir called For Freddie, full of stories about her life, advice and describing her favourite things.
She wrapped birthday presents for him for every year until he turns 21, and left notes so he would know her handwriting.
Most touchingly of all, Rachael left her perfume bottles, so Freddie will remember how his mother smelled when she cuddled him. She said: “I hope the book, gifts and notes will leave an imprint of my love behind for the rest of his life. So he can be sure how very much I love him.”
In the podcast, Steve is asked how Freddie is getting on. “He’s brilliant,” he says. “He’s a bit young really to understand even on a very base level what’s happened. “But he’s just full of energy, full of joy, full of life, keeping us busy. He’s fantastic. “You can’t look at him without seeing Rachael either. So it’s a little bit of her all the time, just next to me.”
As Freddie grows up, he will surely understand that it is not “just him and Dad” from now on. Because his mother’s extraordinary love will never die.
■ Subscribe and listen to the full episode of You, Me and the Big C: About The Loss on www.bbc.co.uk/youmebigc and on BBC Sounds, the BBC’s new audio listening app. VERDICT Addison Lee taxi DRIVERS with taxi giant Addison Lee have won the right to be treated as workers, not self-employed.
The ruling by the Employment Appeal Tribunal gives rights such as holiday pay and national minimum wage to the firm’s 4,000 drivers.
Union GMB brought the case and said: “This is another huge win over bogus self-employment.”
Many Addison Lee drivers had to work in excess of 60 hours a week to cover basic living costs, said solicitor Liana Wood, who fought the GMB case.
The ruling follows similar ones against Uber and delivery firm Hermes.
Addison Lee that said it was “disappointed” and would “carefully review” the verdict.
If she had known, she might have wanted to go into a hospice