STAR IN PROMISE TO Sherrie: My anguish as brother has brain tumour and only 18 months to live

“Part of me wanted to throw everything up in the air and go to him there and then. But another voice in my head said, ‘No. You need to keep on earning, girl, because Brett is going to need you now.’ You’d better get out here and do your job.”

Sherrie, who first trod the boards aged four, wiped aways the tears and got ready for the show at Belfast’s Grand Opera House. Fellow actors Tony Maudsley, who plays Kenneth, and Jake Canuso, who is Mateo, helped Sherrie through the show.

Sherrie said: “Not a soul in the audience knew what I was going through. Every part of me wanted to be with Brett but I had to stay s t r ong.” That night her performance brought the house down and, despite all the heartache in the following months, Sherrie did not miss a show.

After taking her bow she dashed to Belfast airport to be by Brett’s side. On April 4, just a few days after the diagnosis, Brett, 71, was admitted to t h e Wa l t o n

Centre, a neurological hospital in Liverpool, where a golf ball sized tumour was removed from his brain in a ninehour operation. His daughter Chloe, 37, had insisted former DJ, male model and TV actor Brett have a check-up after his tongue stopped moving properly.

He was also sensing mysterious powerful odours and was constantly feeling tired.

At an A&E near his home in Llandudno, Conwy – where he runs a tea shop with his wife of 40 years Annie, 68, – a scan revealed a massive swelling on the brain.

Fluid had built up and Brett would have died within days without surgery surgery.

The oper operation was a success but three days later he suff suffered a massive bleed on the brain and needed another fourhour o op to remove a bloo blood clot which had f formed in the cavi cavity where the tum tumour had been.

Again he p pulled through a and then faced radiotherapy and chemo in a b bid to keep the a aggressive c cancer at bay. Tests showed the tumour was a grade 4 glioblastoma – the most common and aggressive brain tumour in adults.

Now Sherrie aims to be by Brett’s side as much as possible in the time he has left.

She has also become an ambassador of The Brain Tumour Charity to raise awareness of the symptoms and is seeking new treatments and drugs which could help prolong Brett’s life beyond 18 months.

She also has plans to rent a home in Llandudno to be near Brett and has arranged to do Christmas panto in the town so all the family will be together.

Sherrie, who was dizzy Maureen Webster in Corrie and has been a regular on Loose Women, said: “You never think it’s going to happen to you or your family but it doesn’t matter if you’re famous or not, young or old, brain tumours can affect any one.

“Brett wants to leave a legacy