Actor and author Arabella Weir has been chosen to launch World Cancer Day in Scotland.
The Two Doors Down star is posing with a Unity Band in memory of her mum, dad, best friend and step mum after losing all four to the devastating disease. Now Arabella has teamed up with Cancer Research UK and is urging Scots to wear a Unity Band with pride for World Cancer Day on Saturday 4th February.
The bands, on sale for a suggested donation of £2, are made of two parts, knotted together, to symbolise strength in unity. Every band worn, every donation made and everyone who shows their support will help save more lives by funding Cancer Research UK research to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Every hour, four people are diagnosed with cancer in Scotland* and Arabella knows exactly how heartbreaking it can be caring for a loved one going through it.
Arabella, 59, said: “I’ve lost so many of the people I love to cancer.
“At times it has felt like being stuck on a train track while the trains keep coming up and hitting me. I think when your closest loved ones are dying all you can do is be there for them in the way you would like loved ones to be there for you. I tried to do everything I could to help in whatever way they needed me, in as practical a way as I possibly could. I tried to be there but not to cry too much. Wearing a Unity Band or donating is a simple and easy way to show support, to help fund vital research to develop new treatments so more families have more tomorrows.”
Arabella who lives in London but was raised by Scottish parents is hugely proud of her Scottish roots. She plays Alex Norton’s wife, Beth Baird in Two Doors Down, the hit BBC network comedy about Scottish suburbia also starring Sharon Rooney and Elaine C Smith which has just completed a second series. But off camera, Arabella has been through a tough few years.
It was a shock when Arabella, who has starred in TV’s The Fast Show, Skins and Doctor Who, was told her dad, Sir Michael Weir only had weeks to live. Sir Michael, a former British Ambassador to Egypt, who had grown up in Dunfermline, Fife had lived with prostate cancer for more than a decade but kept the illness a secret from his children.
Arabella said: “That was my dad all over. Seeing him, laughing with him, spending time with him, you’d never have known he was fighting cancer. Dad had been so very active all his life, even skiing in his 70s, so when he did suddenly weaken in the last few weeks of his life, his decline seemed to come out of nowhere.
“I think my dad didn’t want to deal with seeing his children crying. There will have been a bit of wanting to protect us too. I must have told him I loved him about ten times per visit in those last few weeks of his life and I’m glad I did. I was very, very proud of dad. It was a big leap for dad, a lower middle class boy from Dunfermline to become an Ambassador. He did so well.”
Sir Michael who at school had been Dux of Dunfermline High before winning a scholarship to Edinburgh University was 81 when he died. It was the first of a series of cancer blows for Arabella. After her dad died on June 22 2006, Arabella’s step mum, Hilary Reid who had been married to Arabella’s dad for 30 years was also diagnosed with cancer and died from myeloma in 2008 aged 63.
Months later in May 2009, Arabella’s mum Alison Walker who was born in Easter Ross and grew up in Melrose died from breast cancer aged 83.
Arabella, who is mum to Isabella, 19, and Archie, 17, said: “One of the things I’m grateful for is that I don’t get squeamish about the practical side to caring for someone who is unwell.
“I’m good at just rolling my sleeves up and getting on with it. When you’re dying it doesn’t help to have someone sitting there saying, ‘I can’t cope with this’. That only makes things worse. My mum was very good about it. She said that everyone has to die and she came to accept it.”
But it felt almost unbearable for Arabella when her best friend, a mum of three Helen Scott-Lidgett died from ovarian cancer on 31st July 2012. Helen, who was a public relations executive in London, teacher and special advisor to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was just 63.
Arabella said: “I’ve got a few best friends but Helen was my absolute soul mate.
“She was my best, best, best friend. She rang me and said, ‘it’s bad news. I have cancer.’ It was a July morning and I went round to her house. We opened up a bottle of champagne. Doctors said she had about a year and a half but she in fact had four years almost to the day which was pretty incredible. People talk about fighting cancer. Helen overdid it a bit. She just wasn’t accepting that she was going to die. I went with Helen to her chemotherapy sessions. Helen and I had a real laugh, even about her oncologist.”
Helen said, “Wait until you meet him. He looks like the playwright Tom Stoppard. When I met him I said, ‘I’m sorry he doesn’t look like Tom Stoppard at all, more like Barry Manilow.’ A cancer diagnosis is no laughing matter but Helen and I managed to find humour even in her darkest moments, laughing almost to the end and sharing our closeness during her treatment for which I’ll always be eternally grateful.
“I helped to nurse her and I last saw her about an hour before she died. You don’t know you’re going to rise to these challenges in life until they happen. I loved her very much so I wanted to do everything I could to help her. There’s not a day when I don’t miss Helen. She was the person with whom I felt most at ease. Every single day something will happen that I think, ‘I must tell Helen about this. We were so close that I honestly feel part of me went with her.”
Cancer Research UK is working with nine other charities to encourage people to wear a Unity Band and help raise vital funds. By joining together, the charities hope to raise awareness and make an impact in transforming the lives of millions who are affected by cancer.
Lisa Adams, Cancer Research UK spokeswoman in Scotland, said: “World Cancer Day provides an opportunity for people in Scotland as well as across the world, to show that together we can be a powerful force to beat cancer sooner.
“Whatever the motivation- to remember a loved one, celebrate people who have overcome the disease, or to rally in support of those going through treatment-World Cancer Day is a chance to get involved and help more people survive this disease. Survival has doubled since the 1970s and Cancer Research UK’s work has been at the heart of that progress- but every step our doctors, nurses and scientists take relies on donations from the public and the tireless fundraising of our supporters.”
Arabella is highlighting Cancer Research UK’s Unity Bands for World Cancer Day which is Saturday 4th February. The bands which come in three different colours are available from all 84 Cancer Research UK shops in Scotland. Unity bands are also available online at www.cruk.org.uk/worldcancerday