FIRST PERSON
Following the Princess of Wales’s brave announcement, Hunter Davies reflects on his late wife’s diagnosis at the age of 36, and the impact it had on their family
My late wife, Margaret Forster, first had cancer around the same age as the Princess of Wales and, like William and Kate, we also had three children. So ever since Kate, 42, announced the dreadful news, I have been wondering how they have been coping. What have their children been told?
Chemo and radiotherapy are so debilitating and can go on for months, if not years. Cancer strikes at any age, rank and circumstance. We all know someone who has been through it.
Kate was so brave to share what had happened in a video address to the nation, but then the whole world was watching and waiting, wondering and speculating. How awful to have to be constantly in the public spotlight when the natural desire of most people is to keep your pain and condition, your emotions and worries, as private as possible.
My wife Margaret was just 36 when, in 1975, it first happened to her. Our children were 11, nine and three. She discovered a small lump in her left breast. She did not tell me about it until after she had seen our GP, who sent her to hospital for tests. The results came back too quickly, and a total mastectomy of her left breast was recommended.
Margaret was, strangely, quietly resigned. She had always felt something awful like that would happen to her. We had been too lucky – three lovely children, our own house, successful careers – it could not last. I told her not to be so dopey. You only make things worse by worrying about what might happen. Live for today. She would argue that by imagining the worst, she was prepared.
We spent many evenings pointlessly wondering why it had happened. There was no history of cancer in her family.
Unlike me, Margaret was the picture of health – never ill, so strong. I remember seeing her in hospital after her operation and observing her consultant striding around the ward followed by her entourage, explaining loudly that Margaret was an unlikely candidate for cancer. She was only 36, was fit, never smoked and had breast-fed three children.
Margaret, like Kate, also looked so well, with a perfect complexion. I used to imagine growing old together, her striding about as a rosy cheeked granny, me a shambling, decrepit wreck. That last bit has come true. Ever since Kate first entered the limelight, while still at St Andrews, she seemed to radiate health. How could this happen to her? Alas, that is the vicious nature of cancer.
Margaret had two weeks in hospital and then six weeks recovering at home. I had just started a new job editing the Sunday Times Magazine and Margaret insisted I had to keep working.
I was sti
