Attempting to sing again was nerve-racking ...I know I won’t look, sound or dance the same
JAY Aston tops up her lipstick and smiles brightly for the camera, as she has done countless times during her 40-year singing career. But this time there’s no artifice behind the grin, only genuine joy, which two months ago she was not sure she would ever truly feel again.
In June, the Bucks Fizz star revealed a devastating diagnosis of mouth cancer. Just a week later, she underwent a sevenhour operation to remove a section of her tongue and lymph nodes.
It was successful and now Jay 57 – who has 15-year-old daughter Josie with husband Dave Colquhoun – can happily confirm she is cancer-free.
She recalls: “My surgeon came in 10 days after my operation to tell me himself. I was elated – there were tears of joy. I’m here to tell the tale, to be a mum and a wife.”
Her relief and thankfulness is tangible. Yet, mid-grin, the singer pauses for a second as she poses in her Kent garden and confides how physically uncomfortable the act of smiling is.
For all her positivity, Jay’s recovery is proving slow and painful. The inside of her mouth and throat are still swollen, she speaks with a heavy lisp, her voice is still slurred and her future as a singer is uncertain. Her surgery was extensive.
She had a section of the left side of her tongue removed from front to back. Then, surgeons took a skin graft from her upper thigh, including a major nerve, which they inserted through a long incision along her jawline and used to reconstruct the removed section of tongue.
Jay also had lymph nodes removed from her neck and a tracheal tube inserted into her throat, which remained in place for a week to help her breathe because the swelling was so severe. For all that time, she was mute.
Now, with a battle-weariness she can’t always hide, Jay shows me the seven-inch scar on her thigh and the deep gash under her jawline, and admits she fears she will never again be the performer she once was.
She said: “I’m very, very lucky they caught it.
“But about week four I hit a bit of a depression. I know I will never really look the same, dance the same, or sound the same. There is a chance I will always have a lisp.”
Bravely, Jay attempted scales two weeks ago, despite being in too much discomfort to open her mouth fully. While her range is still intact, her singing voice is, of course, altered.
She added: “It was nerve-racking to attempt singing for the first time.
“I have noticed my voice is different – I suppose because my tongue is different.
“I don’t suppose I’ll ever be as I was but hopefully I will be able to sing. It’s an unknown. Singing and dancing is my identity – and that has been challenged.”
Jay says she hasn’t allowed herself to cry properly but that may happen in months to come.
She said: “I’m in a quandary with myself, so I have had stilted tears. I’m sad about what has happened but I know I’m very lucky, so I’m not going to complain. I’ve done a bit of soulsearching and there’s no point going over the past. I want to focus on the present and the future.”
Wiping away the tears, she added: “It’s too early to make a judgment. A few weeks ago, I looked like I was going to a Halloween party.”
Jay discovered she had precancerous cells in April, after years of screening due to a rash on her tongue called lichen planus, an autoimmune condition.
She was told she would need a slim slice removed for a biopsy, leaving her unable to speak clearly, or sing, for months. Only two per cent of cases in
I saw trees and cried. I realised the things that we take for granted JAY ASTON ON RECOVERY AFTER CANCER OPERATION
this situation turn out to be cancer but, sadly, hers did.
It was the worst timing. Jay and two of her original Bucks Fizz bandmates – Cheryl Baker, 64, and Mike Nolan, 63 – had been performing successfully as new band The Fizz, and working on an album deal with legendary pop producer Mike Stock.
Before her biopsy, Jay recorded vocals so she could mime at gigs. She continued to do so ahead of her operation and the band brought forward recording time in the studio, unsure if Jay would sing again.
She describes coming round in intensive care after the surgery in a “fog” of drugs. She said: “I had tubes coming out of me everywhere. I was on a drip, I had a feed through my nose, drains in my neck and leg, and the tracheotomy. The first week was really grim. “After day four, the pain really kicked in. I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t drink.” Initially, she wouldn’t even let her daughter visit, saying: “I wasn’t a pretty sight.” All the time the tracheal tube was in, Jay was unable to speak. She said: “The nurses give you a white board. I did a lot of writing and wiping. Basic stuff like: I need to go to the loo.” Returning home 10 days after surgery, Jay survived on “mash and soup”. It is only in the past week that she has been able to try solid food. She has energetic days and others where she remains in bed, exhausted.
She says that Cheryl and Mike have been extremely supportive.
In the past, the group weren’t always so close. Jay originally left Bucks Fizz in 1985, four years after they won Eurovision with Making Your Mind Up.
There were years of acrimony around contractual disputes and she didn’t speak to Cheryl for 23 years. After the band re-formed in 2004, Mike, Jay and Cheryl became embroiled in a legal feud with Bobby G, 65, one of the original members.
His wife Heidi Manton – who joined the group after Jay left – had trademarked the name Bucks Fizz.
But Jay says they are now closer than ever and revealed that although the band have been forced to perform a string of gigs in her absence, and hire two backing singers to cover her, they have insisted on paying her.
She added: “Mike said, ‘We don’t want you to have any more stress’. Financial stress would have been difficult.”
In return, Jay has stayed involved with artwork for album covers, chosen costumes and is even determined to join The Fizz for a short set in October although she will need to mime.
She keeps upbeat by appreciating the little things she feared she would lose.
Jay said: “The first time Dave took me out in the car, I cried. Seeing the trees and the sun. It makes you realise how we take everything for granted.”
She is adamant that whatever the future holds, once her leg is strong enough, she will join Cheryl for that famous Fizz skirtripping routine once again.
“I’ll just put two pairs of tights on – that’ll cover the scar a treat,” she said.