Singer and actress Linda Nolan was laughing and joking right up until the end, her sister Denise reveals today. The Mirror columnist and pop icon, who died on Wednesday aged 65, had been rushed to hospital with breathing difficulties last weekend, eight years after being told she had secondary breast cancer in her hip.
Doctors diagnosed double pneumonia and put her on oxygen, advising her to rest quietly and let it work. But Denise, 72, reveals Linda instead lived up to her “Naughty Nolan” nickname, saying that rather than do what she had been told, the star spent her final waking hours doing what she loved best – entertaining those around her. Recounting the last few hours in the life of her “beautiful, brave, hard-working and talented sister”, Denise says: “She’d been laughing and joking, although the medical team had told her she had to stay quiet to let her treatment do its job. Everyone was being quietly optimistic as she’d seemed so cheerful. Then at 3.30am on Tuesday, we got the dreaded call, ‘Get to the hospital asap’.”
Linda had been told two years ago that the cancer had spread to her brain. Yet just two days before being taken to hospital last Saturday, she had said in her weekly Mirror column how she was feeling better after a Christmas “bout of flu”.
With her trademark positivity, Linda wrote: “I feel so grateful to be feeling well again. It feels like a whole new world out there. There’s nothing like the sensation of starting to feel better after an illness. I wake up every morning and I think, ‘This is another day to celebrate’.”
But within 48 hours she began having trouble with her breathing. Denise – who had been caring for Linda at her home in Blackpool – summoned help. She says now: “I can still see her struggling to breathe, and the lovely nurse who got the doctor out. He took one look and rang an ambulance.
“I went with her and spent hours at the hospital as she was poked and prodded. It was something she’d got used to over the years. She was a model patient, apologising for any inconvenience to myself and the lovely hospital staff. Eventually, she was settled. And I left… not knowing that would be the last time I would see her conscious.”
While Denise returned home to care for husband Tom Anderson, 77, who suffers from Parkinson’s, other family members and friends stepped in. As they kept Linda company at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, they reported back on how lively she had been. Denise had been set to visit again on Tuesday but, on Monday night, Linda began to deteriorate as her weakened immune system fought the pneumonia.
She slipped into unconsciousness in the early hours and doctors made the decision to start end-of-life care. Linda’s siblings – brothers Tommy, 75, and Brian, 69, and sisters Anne, 74, Denise, Maureen, 70, and Coleen, 59 – were called urgently to her bedside. Yet, as with the cancer that had circled her for 20 years, Linda defied expectations. Denise says: “Friends and family sat by her bed, holding her hand, for 36 hours. She wouldn’t give up.”
After 14 hours keeping vigil over Linda, Denise had to leave to give her husband his medication. Before she could return on the Wednesday morning, she got the call to say Linda had passed away. The other sisters had all been at her side. It is a phone call that will stay with Denise for ever.
She says: “At around 10.20am we got the worst news – our beautiful, brave, hard-working, talented sister was gone. We’re numb. My husband Tom can’t speak about her without crying. We’ll love and miss her for ever.” Still reeling from the news, along with the rest of the family, it will be a long time before Denise is ready to talk fully.
But she felt it was important for Linda’s fans to know of her bravery and positivity in her final few days. That is why she wrote a statement which she gave to the Sunday Mirror to use. The siblings lost their sister Bernie to secondary breast cancer in 2013, at the age of just 52. In the wake of that loss, Denise and Linda had spent the last few years in each other’s pockets.
Denise went with Linda to hospital appointments, and earned the nickname “Deliveroo Denise” for taking her meals on the rare times when bad news left her hiding away in her bedroom. In return, it was Linda who gave Denise and Tom the nudge to get down the aisle after 47 years together. Losing her has left an unimaginable hole in her life – and her home. Denise tells us in her statement: “We’ve been here before, with our beloved Bernie.
“But this has been harder because Linda lived with us. I’m looking round the room – everywhere there are reminders. Her tablets on the table… even her bath towel which I’ve just washed and she will never use again. Each time the alarm for Tom’s daily medicine goes off, I smile sadly. She would always shout ‘medication time’ – I can almost hear her saying it! She loved hospital documentaries, so whenever I came in, she’d be on the couch engrossed. I could never understand how she could enjoy them.”
But no image is more striking than the delivery Denise received as she wrote. She says: “Her hospital case, which I packed, has just been brought back. With no Linda.” Linda had found fame alongside her five sisters as The Nolans, later carving out a name in the West End and on TV.
Her death was covered around the world, from NME Japan to People magazine in the US, and as far afield as Mexico and Australia. Moving from Dublin to Blackpool as children, the sisters had worked up through the clubs to become 70s and 80s pop icons. They sold more than 30 million records, with catchy hits like Spirit, Body and Soul, Attention to Me and 1979’s disco classic I’m in the Mood for Dancing.
They toured with Frank Sinatra, sang for US President Gerald Ford, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mum, and had No1s in Japan, South Africa and Hong Kong. In Japan, they outsold Michael Jackson and The Beatles combined.
But Linda also faced adversity. Her husband Brian died of liver failure in 2007 aged 60. She once struggled with suicidal thoughts. And in 2005, was diagnosed with breast cancer. By 2011 she was cancer-free. But it returned in 2017, with secondary cancer in her hip, then her liver, and finally in her brain. She raised more than £20million for breast cancer and mental health charities, as well as Samaritans. Her sister Anne, who had breast cancer twice, 20 years apart, joined her for chemo.
Now cancer-free, Anne wrote in a tribute online: “The most generous, loving, beautiful, annoying at times, helpful, brave, forthright, person. You found humour in life’s darkest corners.” Youngest sister Coleen, a Loose Women panellist, added: “Her wit, humour and laughter was infectious. Linda had a heart full of compassion.”
Maureen wrote: “I am heartbroken, as we all are.” On Wednesday night, Blackpool Tower was lit up pink in honour of the town’s “shining star”. Dermot McNamara, Linda’s manager and long-time friend, said: “A pop icon and a beacon of hope. She faced incurable cancer with courage, grace and determination, inspiring millions. She will never be forgotten.”
