Linda Nolan has revealed she has started planning her own funeral - and wants a glittery pink coffin like her aunty had.
Six weeks ago, the Dublin-born singer, 64, received the terrifying diagnosis that cancerous tumours had been found in her brain. It came almost 20 years after the so-called “naughty Nolan”, the sixth of eight Nolan siblings, was first diagnosed with cancer.
The development is all the more devastating because younger sister Bernie had cancer in her brain when she died 10 years ago this July, aged 52. Back in 2005, Linda had a mastectomy and 18 rounds of chemo due to breast cancer.
In the years since then, she has lost her husband Brian and younger sister Bernie to cancer - and watched eldest sister Anne successfully fight it. However, her own cancer returned, first in her hip in 2017 and then, in 2020, in her liver.
She has just finished 11 radiotherapy sessions, is taking on steroids and awaiting the results of a second MRI scan to see if the brain tumours have shrunk. Then she will start taking the new chemotherapy drug Tucatinib, to “give me more time”,
However, Linda told The Mirror: “I think it’s a one-way trip now.”
Linda now walks with a slivery walking stick and a walking frame - and often needs a wheelchair outside. She has moved in with sister Denise close by in Blackpool, and her other sister Maureen visits daily.
“I am positive, but I have my moments when I slide down the wall in a heap,” said Linda. “What happens? Is it dark, are you on your own? I’m frightened of the unknown and being on my own, I have always been with people.
“I’m frightened to cry in case I don’t stop sometimes.”
However, Linda is beginning to make plans for her funeral. She says: “Brian organised his funeral and it was amazing. Bernie arranged hers.
"It’s easier for people left behind. I’ve gone into it a little bit. A Neil Sedaka song, Our Last Song Together. And I know the funeral people I’m going to use.
“Brian’s coffin was like a flight case, with ‘This way up’, ‘Fragile’ on it. Our auntie had a beautiful coffin with pictures of us around it.
“Then Maureen said ‘Look at this coffin, it was made for you, it’s pink glitter’.”
When asked if was planning to go with a pink glitter coffin too, she said: "Absolutely. I am the blingy Nolan.”
Linda's full exclusive interview with the Mirror can be read here.
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