“It just goes to show that women must be very careful in checking themselves and going for mammograms,” she says. The pair were living together at the time, with Aisha working as a post-production supervisor in film.Īlthough her sister-in-law had had breast cancer 18 months earlier, so they had been touched by the illness, Rita says there was no history in their family at all. I had to make my way out of this restaurant where the party was, grab a cab and go immediately home.” “When she told me, everything went black. When I didn’t get an answer I called again and when I eventually spoke to her I said ‘I know there’s something the matter, what is it?’. I was expecting her to arrive at a friend’s party and when she didn’t I called her. “It wasn’t until she’d been given the diagnosis that she told me. She wanted to be totally focused on the consultant and what he was saying. “When she did go, she went on her own because she wanted to be able to take in whatever the news was without worrying about someone else being there. I suppose she didn’t want to hear the inevitable. “At first she delayed going to the doctor’s even though she knew she had to do something about it. “She’d found a lump when she was staying with friends at Christmas time, but she didn’t tell me,” she remembers. Now almost 70, the actress recalls the day six years ago when she discovered her daughter had an aggressive breast cancer. “But without the work of Cancer Research UK, who knows how many more lives would be lost?” “Aisha was treated at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, and they were absolutely amazing,” says Rita. She has become an active supporter for Cancer Research UK, and is currently lending her name to the charity’s campaign for legacy donations. So you sit there and you watch your child, their little face and the tubes in their arms, and you try to be as strong as you can possibly be for them.”įor Rita, who found worldwide fame at just 19 with the era- defining Sixties movie A Taste Of Honey, fighting the battle alongside Aisha has given her a new focus. “Any parent will tell you they would much rather it was them, but the fact is it isn’t. “It is painful to see someone you love going through that, but you know it’s necessary, so what can you do? “There were times when it was heartbreaking, but she would remind me over and over of what we’d agreed,” smiles Rita. Through six months of gruelling chemotherapy sessions, she sat by 33-year-old Aisha’s side, reserving the tears for when they were apart. The Liverpool-born actress kept her promise. “She showed remarkable bravery right from the start.” “When Aisha told me, the first thing she said was ‘no tears, no tears’,” says Rita. WHEN Rita Tushingham’s daughter broke the news that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, they made a pact.
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