Linda back in the mood for happiness after hard times
LINDA NOLAN has taken a lot of knocks over the years – the loss of her husband Brian Hudson and sister Bernie, both to cancer, her late mother’s dementia, plus her own battle with breast cancer. Nolan was diagnosed with secondary cancer a year ago – 11 years after she’d gone into remission – when she fractured her hip in a fall and a tumour was found.
Despite all this, the 59-year-old singer – who enjoyed huge success as one of the famous Nolan Sisters in the 1970s and early 1980s, with hits like
– remains remarkably positive about the life she has left.
“Living with an incurable disease has changed the way I live my life,” she explains. “There was a time after Brian had passed away and after Bernie had been ill that I went into a downward spiral of depression. At times, I thought about taking my own life. Now, with this diagnosis, I think life is so precious. There’s so much to live for. I look at my great-nieces and nephews, who are all toddlers, and think, ‘Oh, I would have missed all of this’. I let people know that I love them.”
She is now on a cocktail of drugs and has a monthly injection in her stomach to help strengthen her bones, plus a CT scan every three months. “I get nervous before the scan, but I don’t want to live the three months between each scan worrying every day that it might have spread.” She had her last results in early February and all was good. So far, the cancer has not spread and the tumour is contained in her left hip.
“I’m not in a lot of pain, but I can’t go on long walks because my hip aches. But I’m off my crutch now, which is great.”
Linda’s new memoir, which charts the highs and lows of her life, including her experience in 2014, spats with her sisters and other dramas, was fuelled by her recent diagnosis.
“After Brian’s death, I saw my doctors every two weeks and was having counselling as well. Initially, I was diagnosed with complex grief. I think it was because Brian and I were together 24/7 (he was her manager). He was the love of my life. I met him when I was 22 and we’d been married for 26 years. I lost hope of ever being happy again. I lined up the tablets, but I found the Samaritans and the crisis team of my local mental health team. It wasn’t that I wanted to die, it’s that I wanted the pain to go away. Now, of course, I look back on what I would have missed and how wrong I was. People just wanted to help.”
When the Nolans embarked on a reunion tour in 2009, she felt alive again, but when the tour ended, she found a huge void in her life. Then, when Bernie was diagnosed with breast cancer and Linda was still battling depression, she started having panic attacks and self-harming.
“I would dig my fingernails so deep into my hand that I’d draw blood. Other times, I would bite my hand until I broke the skin,” she writes. “I might be on anti-depressants for life, but they stop me crying every day. It’s not a magic cure. I still have down days. But they make it easier.”
She has now given herself a bucket list, she says.
“I would love to fly first class. I’ve never done that. I’ve flown business class when we were flying to Japan a lot, but never first class. I would love to take my great-nieces and nephews to Lapland to see Santa. I want to go to New York with my siblings for the Macy’s Parade. And I’m a shoe-aholic. I always wanted a pair of Jimmy Choos or Louboutins.”
And she says she’s finally ready to find love again. “I’d like to have someone just somebody to put their arm around me. If I fell in love again, that would be amazing, but I know I’ve had the love of my life.”
by Linda Nolan is published by Sidgwick & Jackson on March 8, priced £18.99.