Bernie Nolan has moved back to her family home in Surrey, England to live out her final days as she succumbs to the cancer which has spread to her brain, bones, liver and lungs.
Bernie Nolan
Bernie, who along with her siblings Maureen, Coleen and Linda performed as The Nolans, enjoyed several hits in the late 1970s and 1980s, including I’m In The Mood For Dancing, Attention To Me and Gotta Pull Myself Together (which reached number three on the Australian charts).
She also starred in the popular soap opera Brookside as Diane Murray, and later in the U.K. police drama The Bill, as Sgt Sheelagh Murphy.
In 2010, Bernie announced that she was suffering from breast cancer, and underwent chemotherapy and a mastectomy. Less than two years later, she declared that she was completely free of the disease. Sadly, in October 2012, Bernie revealed that the cancer had returned and was incurable.
Her husband of 17 years, Steve Doneathy, told U.K. newspaper Daily Mirror, “A nurse took me into another room, and told me we were looking at an end-of-life situation. My whole world turned upside down in a second. I went in (to see Nolan) and said, ‘The doctors think you’re very, very poorly, and you’re not getting better’. Straight away, like I knew she would, she said, ‘Am I going to die?’ I told her yes.”
He continued, “She was quiet. She didn’t say anything for about 30 seconds. And then she said, ‘Fuck’. She was quietly angry. And then we cried, hugged and said we loved each other.”
Bernie has discussed her funeral plans with her loved ones and wishes to be buried alongside her late daughter, Kate who was stillborn in 1997.
A fan has set up @TeamBernieNolan #staystrongbernie on Twitter with more than 7500 followers tweeting their support.
Here are The Nolans in all their glory on Countdown back in 1981…
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