Farewell Rachael, my beautiful friend
My heart breaks for the family of Rachael Bland, who died after revealing she had just days to live, says Shelagh Fogarty
The headline reads “Husband left heartbroken but proud as BBC presenter dies”. The commuter sitting next to me reads every word below it, with what I imagine is great care. When we read stories of someone else’s loss, especially when the person dying is a mother, we wonder: how would I cope? For mothers wondering, Rachael Bland left behind a very human-scale map. For everyone else, she leaves an example of hope, a talent for living and transforming what one colleague called “her sh---- predicament” into a superb and ongoing conversation about illness and death.
Rachael and I became friends when she read news bulletins on a programme I presented daily on BBC Radio 5 Live. We were all in the throes of a rather disorienting relocation of the network from London to Salford, so we bonded over the wacky new meeting rooms (don’t ask) and the biting wind that almost knocked you down as you walked from the car park to the office.
It was a disruptive time but when Rachael was on duty you were in safe hands. No drama, just a professional job done, and a cheerful presence amid the sometimes grim subjects we covered.
When her dad died, we talked about grief together. My own father had died some years before so she quizzed me on what to expect. Her first thoughts were for her mother. Now, my heart breaks for her mum, facing unimaginable loss.
One of the consequences of her diagnosis has been that the world, and even Rachael herself, discovered new layers in her voice and character. Richard Bacon has spoken beautifully about “The Special Half-Hour” – a segment on his late-night show at 5 Live where Rachael was able to flex more presenter muscles than straight newsreading will ever allow.
He says on Twitter: “The Special Half-Hour, which was designed purely to rather lazily fill up 12.30am to 1am, and was ironically named, now feels really special. Every bit of it is bound up with memories of Rachael Bland at her best.”
Having faced down death himself, and horror at the thought of leaving his young children behind, I have no doubt he feels her death acutely.
Now the girlie bit. Rachael was a beauty, a head-turner, but my goodness she was a woman’s woman. She dressed beautifully and had a mane of blonde hair one uninformed TV editor urged her to cut off; BBC Breakfast’s Sally Nugent intervened and stopped such an act of vandalism. Not even cancer and chemo beat the hair. She and I often talked fashion, spa treatments and luxury holidays, so when she revealed she was engaged we slipped effortlessly into wedding talk. Steve Bland had been a producer on the breakfast show I co-presented with Nicky Campbell, and was just as gentle as Rachael.
I remember remarking to myself how clear she was about what she wanted in life: family, love, babies, fun, horses. Great recipe. Even after I left 5 Live, we kept in touch as her and Steve’s new life in Cheshire began. After a few false starts, Freddie arrived three years ago, a smiley boy who could not have made two people happier. The new hope and horizons that babies bring is always a joy to behold. How soon that would all be overshadowed.
I won’t labour the detail of her cancer treatment because Rachael has already documented as much of it as she wanted to. What could I do to help? I’d seen another friend, Victoria Derbyshire, go through similar treatment not long before and knew what a slog it was. Then it hit me… lovely girlie stuff. We used to salivate over the White Company website, so I sent their cashmere, candles and holiday towels for those trips she WOULD be making (and did).
Steve messaged me last week to say she loved each surprise. I’m so glad. I wanted her to feel that the good times would roll again, and they did, just differently, and amid tough times.
She spoke about the outpouring of love she received from everyone who knew her, and people who didn’t. It unlocked something in “public” Rachael. I’ll let people closer to her than I was speak of private times.
Her unassuming, gentle attitude probably meant she was underestimated over the years by some in newsrooms. The cancer, the love, the unwanted new horizon of death and dodging it gave rise to You, Me and the Big C – her podcast with two friends she met during treatment. It’s going to continue without her but she was, is, and will be its beating heart. It was No 1 on iTunes the day before she died.
It deals with every angle of cancer – the medical, personal, societal, ethical upshot of that insidious, devastating disease. She wanted to get stuck in and talk the hell out of it. She helped thousands and admitted it helped her, too. Good.
In a recent episode on facing death, which she now knew was imminent, the (impossibly handsome) actor Greg Wise joined them to talk about caring for his sister as she died from cancer. They all wanted the taboos, the euphemisms of death, to be replaced by a frank grown-up acceptance that all of us lose people we love, and all of us die, so why do we still recoil from it in terror at every turn.
Rachael spoke of being in denial about her own death but I think she did herself a disservice there. She knew it might be soon, was in agony about leaving Steve and Freddie behind, but chose to live well anyway. It wasn’t denial. It was turning away from looming death because it would come soon enough. It was choosing to live and love and, of course, laugh.
At the end of the interview with Wise, she sighed and said, with faux longing: “God, I want him with me when I die!” Listening at home, I laughed until I cried. Then I cried for real.
We will keep an eye out for Steve and Freddie. Rachael’s little boy has lost his Mummy but inherited hundreds of aunties and uncles, people who, because she asked us to, will help Steve make sure he lives, loves and laughs.
What could I do to help? Then it hit me: lovely girlie stuff