EastEnders actor Shane Ritchie and comedian Paul Chuckle were among the stars at singer Linda Nolan’s funeral in Blackpool on Saturday.
Nolan died at the age of 65 last month having been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005.
Image: Nolan’s sons Shane Jr (left) and Jake help carry her coffin. Pic: PA
Her pink, sparkly coffin was carried into St Paul’s Church in her home city by her sons and others – while her sisters wore pink breast cancer broaches and earrings – opting for pink handbags to contrast with their black outfits.
Image: Linda Nolan, Anne Nolan, Bernie Nolan, Coleen Nolan, and Maureen Nolan. Pic: PA
Sisters Linda, Coleen, Bernie, Maureen, Anne, and Denise formed The Nolans in the 1970s and had hits including I’m In The Mood For Dancing and Gotta Pull Myself Together.
Linda Nolan also had a career in musical theatre, starring in Blood Brothers, Prisoner Cell Block H, and Pump Boys And Dinettes.
In her later years, she appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and wrote a column for the Daily Mirror newspaper.
A framed photo of her was placed outside the church and There You’ll Be by Faith Hill was played as mourners arrived.
Image: Coleen Nolan at her sister’s funeral. Pic: PA
Image: Denise Nolan at her sister’s funeral. Pic: PA
In her eulogy, Denise Nolan-Anderson said: “She really loved going to premieres and opening nights, having her beautiful hair and make-up done, and always was the life and soul of any big occasion. She would have loved all the fuss today.”
She also said Linda showed “courage in the face of adversity”, adding: “It’s time to rest now Linda. The battle is over, you are free.”
Speaking before the service, Paul Elliott, better known as Paul Chuckle of the Chuckle Brothers, said he last saw her in 2024, adding: “She was just a fun, bubbly person. The world’s a darker place without her.”
Image: Paul Chuckle. Pic: PA
Image: EastEnders star Shane Ritchie at the funeral on Saturday. Pic: PA
Shane Richie was previously married to Coleen Nolan. Other stars who paid their respects at the funeral included Charlotte Dawson, singer Lisa Maffia, and comedian Tommy Cannon.
Image: Charlotte Dawson arrives. Pic: PA
Image: Lisa Maffia arrives at the service. Pic: PA
The family statement announcing her death read: “At around 10.20am on Wednesday 15th January, she passed peacefully, with her loving siblings by her bedside, ensuring she was embraced with love and comfort during her final moments, aged 65.”
After her initial diagnosis, Nolan helped to raise £20m for charities Breast Cancer Now and the Irish Cancer Society.
She had a mastectomy and was given the all-clear in 2011 – but was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer that spread to her liver in 2020 and her brain in 2023.
The singer was born in Dublin but made Blackpool her home – marrying her husband of more than two decades, the late Brian Hudson, there.
The family are raising money for Trinity Hospice in her memory – another organisation Nolan supported.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.