![Linda Nolan (Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images for Hearst)](/upload/news/2023/11/15/125173.jpg)
If you found yourselves the unwilling recipient of an impromptu Nolans’ performance as you tucked into your Sunday roast, I apologise.
Twenty of us were out for Anne’s birthday and when it came to the cake – there HAS to be a cake – we’d broken into harmonies at the end of Happy Birthday before we remembered where we were. There were a few eyebrows raised above Yorkshire puds, but no one could accuse us of failing to sing for our supper.
We love a birthday. As kids, Mum and Dad would always throw a party for us, no matter how little money we had. There’d be Pass the Parcel and biscuits after school, and always a cake. But the idea that birthdays, and Christmas come to that, are for kids? I’d argue us so-called grown-ups need them more.
Anne was 73. After we went through cancer together in 2020 she now has the all-clear and is getting on with life. Anne’s Cabs, we call her – she’s forever ferrying her grandkids around, and me too. But the fear never leaves you when you’ve had cancer, and a birthday means more than ever. Getting old? We all want to. Every birthday is a bonus.
My own birthday is in February and I’m beginning to think I’ll see it. Young Linda might have dreaded 65, but nothing would seem more ridiculous now. I long to get old. Obviously, the presents will be good too, as “it could be my last”. It’s a line I’ve trotted out for a while now, so these days my family tend to meet it with a round of “Shurrup!” – in harmony.
I had MRI and CT scans on Tuesday, so I guess I’ll soon have a better idea of just how good those presents should be. It was all pretty standard; the usual palaver trying to get a cannula for the dye into my weary veins, that tunnel I hate that sounds like a pneumatic drill.
So now, the wait. But I’ll be doing some online Christmas shopping while I do. They might tell me to shush, but this year I’m spoiling the Nolan clan.