Linda Nolan has said she has chosen the songs she wants played at her funeral after being diagnosed with cancer for a second time.
The former singer and entertainer, 59, who found fame with The Nolans in the 1970s, was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer after a fall last year – 10 years after she was initially treated for the illness.
Nolan said, in an extract from her memoir From My Heart and published in The Daily Mirror, that she is preparing for her funeral and that one of the songs she wants is There You’ll Be by Faith Hill.
“The words couldn’t be more fitting for the moment when I’ll finally be going to meet Brian again,” she said, referring to her late husband Brian Hudson, who died in 2007 from skin cancer.
She said: “It’s the song we played at his funeral. The song we’d jokingly rowed about years earlier as to which of us would have it at our funeral.
“A row in the days when we thought dying was a million miles away. Goodness, how things have changed.”
Nolan, who has previously said her cancer is not curable, added: “And there’s a Neil Sedaka song too, Our Last Song Together. It’s beautiful and by then it really will be our last song with my wonderful family.”
She said she would like to “get all my affairs in order” so that her family do not have to arrange things if she becomes “very poorly”.
Nolan said: “I want to be DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) if it is near the end of my life. And I want to go to a hospice rather than be looked after by one of my brothers and sisters.”
Referring to her late sister Bernie, who died of breast cancer in 2013, she said: “I saw how well Bernie was treated in a hospice and I’d be happy with that.
“And then when I’m dressed and fed and cleaned my brothers and sisters will able to visit me with a bag of sweets and a movie but none of the worry.”
She said that after discovering the cancer had returned, she “wanted to live more than I had ever wanted anything”.