It was heartbreaking enough for the nation to discover that former Emmerdale actress Leah Bracknell had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but just imagine how hard it was for her daughters to hear the terrible news.
The poorly actress, who played vet Zoe Tate for 16 years on the show, says breaking the news to her children Lily, 25, and Maya, 21, was “the worst thing you can imagine”.
“Any mother will know how I felt,” she confided in the Daily Mail. “It’s the worst thing you can imagine having to tell those closest to you, something like this . . . trying to find the words. It’s the worst thing I’ve had to do…”
In spite of her diagnosis, Leah is remaining admirably positive and has chosen not to ask doctors how long she has left to live.
“I haven’t asked and didn’t want to ask,’ she explained. ‘I wasn’t going to give them the power to put that in my mind.
“They told me not to look at the statistics as they said they were years old and involved people a lot older.”
Now Leah is set to undergo groundbreaking lung cancer treatment in Germany that she is now able to afford thanks the generosity of the public who heled over £50, 000.