Mum hid her bowel cancer from us for two years. In three weeks she was gone

Good Morning Britain star Sean Fletcher on the anguish behind his London Marathon mission

IT IS nearly nine years since Sean Fletcher’s mother Carol was torn away from him when she died from bowel cancer. She was gone within three weeks of breaking the news to him that she had the disease and was beyond treatment.

The shock of her sudden death, at just 54, is still palpable as he struggles to describe their final days together.

The Good Morning Britain presenter, who co-hosts the show with Susanna Reid, Ben Shepard and Charlotte Hawkins, cheers up millions of viewers each day with his sunny, cheeky personality.

Yet he is haunted by anguish at his loss and a single, burning question: Why did his mother not tell him that she was dying?

Sean, 40, who lives in London with wife Luned, daughter Lili, 17, and 12-year-old Reuben, admits: ‘I still kick myself for not spotting the signs she was ill, let alone weeks from death. I’m the journalist who didn’t spot the story going on under my nose. I’ll always wonder what might have been if Mum’s cancer had been picked up and treated sooner.’

He recalls the first inkling that something was seriously wrong. It was summer and Sean had called his mother to arrange a visit.

Carol explained she had been admitted to hospital. At first Sean assumed the stay was connected to her recent bout of glandular fever.

‘When I got there, I realised it wasn’t a normal hospital ward – it was full of very ill people, some of whom were clearly close to death,’ says Sean. ‘She still didn’t tell me what was wrong, always changing the subject. I took the doctors aside and asked them what was wrong with her but they told me I needed to talk to Mum about it.’

Now Carol could no longer hide the truth. She had advanced bowel cancer, and had known for two years. She explained to Sean that she had kept her illness from him because she didn’t want him to worry.

Speaking about his loss as he prepares to run the London Maraathon for charity Beating Bowel Cancer, he says: ‘As a parent myself, I see why she did what she did – she was trying to protect me. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but I had no time to absorb what was happening.’

He adds: ‘At the time I thought to myself, “OK, we can fight this.” I didn’t dare to think I might lose her. It was only over the next hours and days that it dawned on me how serious the situation was.’

CAROL was able to go home for her final weeks, and Sean moved in to care for her. ‘It was the worst t time of my life,’ he e says. ‘I had been going about my daily life, worrying about little things and now, suddenly, I was on n the verge of losing my mum. She e had diabetes and all sorts of things s started to go wrong. At one point she e had a cut that wouldn’t stop oozing, g, and I was sitting there patching herer up, literally holding her together.’

Sean developed a deep bond with th his Zimbabwe-born mother after his parents divorced when he was a teenager. She had met his father when she came to the UK to train as a nurse. Sean now lives near his father and they see each other often.

‘I was a mixed-race boy growing up in a very white environment, and much of the time she was the only other black person I knew,’ Sean says. ‘Mum was my mentor, and we were very alike, both determined, but emotional too.’

Sean smiles as he remembers how she was his biggest supporter in the early years of his career. ‘Mum used to have the news on all the time and seemed to know everything I’d done,’ he says.

In 2000, Sean moved his young family to Cardiff after landing a job with BBC Wales. It was a big career step, yet the move was hard on the family. With Carol miles away in Essex, it meant they couldn’t see each other so often, but they kept in contact with phone calls and visits. And as Sean’s career blossomed, there was less and less chance for proper family get-togethers.

So, although during her final weeks his mother was fragile and heavily medicated, Sean says he cherishes that time as it allowed him to say all the things that had gone unsaid. ‘Mum knew I loved her but I wanted to say it properly,’ he recalls.

Sean recalls how he missed his mother’s final moments. ‘Her painkillers were running out and I had gone to the chemist with her prescription,’ he says. ‘It was a huge prescription, and neither of the chemists I tried had enough of the things she needed.

‘I called home to tell a family friend, who was also helping to care for Mum – and she told me to come back straight away as Mum wasn’t breathing. I rushed back, but she had passed away.

‘Because I don’t have any brothers or sisters, I don’t talk about it very often,’ he says, his voice breaking.

‘Over time it has got easier, but sometimes it does feel quite raw. Sometimes it feels like it’s only yesterday since she died.’

In the aftermath, Sean tried his best to piece together what had happened by talking to his mother’s friends. ‘She was diagnosed in 2004, but we think she might have had the cancer for a couple of years before that,’ he says. ‘I don’t know if she had symptoms, but knowing her, she was probably embarrassed and didn’t go to the doctor early enough.’

Carol had chemotherapy but didn’t lose weight, and was able to hide her hair loss from family by always wearing a colourful headscarf.

The distance between mother and son also helped keep the cancer a secret. ‘I was in Cardiff, Mum was in Essex so I couldn’t just pop in. I had to arrange to see her, and I think that made it easy for her,’ Sean says. ‘She would ensure visits didn’t coincide with hospital appointments, and that no one was coming round who would give it away. She was a proud woman and perhaps thought she could deal with it herself.’

For a parent, it can be difficult