Linda Nolan says cancer diagnosis in lockdown was a ‘double nightmare’

The singer said it had been hard not to be able to see her family during this difficult time

Linda Nolan has revealed that learning both she and sister Anne had cancer during lockdown felt like a “double nightmare” as they could not visit one another.

The sisters, who made up part of the pop group The Nolans, were diagnosed within days of each other, shortly after filming concluded for their TV series The Nolans Go Cruising.

Linda, 61, has liver cancer, having faced breast cancer in 2006, cellulitis and lymphoedema in her arm in 2007 and secondary cancer on her pelvis in 2017.

Anne, 69, has stage three breast cancer, after previously being diagnosed with the disease in 2000.

Quest Red

The siblings were diagnosed shortly after filmed wrapped on their TV series (Quest Red)

The siblings started their chemotherapy last month at Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital.

Appearing on Tuesday’s episode of Good Morning Britain, Linda spoke of the strain of not being able to support Anne in person during the coronavirus crisis.

“During the lockdown it’s been a double nightmare,” she said.

“All we initially were able to do was phone [Anne] to say we were here, or wave at her through the window.

Linda spoke of the difficulty of receiving the diagnosis during lockdown
ITV / Good Morning Britain

“So that has made it more difficult. I think Anne has struggled with that, because she has two daughters and grandchildren. Not being able to have their support, as in hugging.

“They’re all mad about their gran, so it has been difficult.”

She added that her sister, who couldn’t appear on the show, is “having everything thrown at her to make her well again.”

Linda said that the pair had been able to “have a good old chinwag” while attending chemotherapy treatment together but admitted that the sisters are “scared to death” and “want to live.”

“It is a very scary diagnosis,” she said. “I’ve known that my cancer isn’t curable since 2017 but I’m getting great treatment and I’m going to be living with cancer and I propose to do that for an awful long time.

“If you sit down and crawl under the duvet, get up, have your treatment and crawl back under the duvet, it’s going to make it twice as bad.”

Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.