Jane McGrath's Mum & Brother Tell: Our Me Mories Of Jane

Ten Years After Her Tragic Passing, the Cancer Campaigner’s Family Speaks.

- Rikki Loftus and Katherine Davison

On one day each year, Jon Steele lights a candle – a touching tribute to the sister he loved and lost.

‘We were always there for each other,’ Jon recalls of his sibling Jane McGrath, whose battle with breast cancer moved the world.

The Englishborn campaigner and wife of former Australian cricket fast-bowler, Glenn McGrath, succumbed to the disease after a courageous 11-year fight on June 22, 2008. She was aged just 42.

Now, as Jon and his mother, Jen, commemorate the 10th anniversary of Jane’s death, they share precious memories of a woman they treasured.

‘A particularly fond memory I have of Jane was her phoning me up and asking me what I was doing for my birthday,’ Jon tells New Idea from his mother’s home in the UK, as he prepared to fly to Sydney for the anniversary.

At the time, Jane was working as a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic – a job she was doing when she met her future husband Glenn in a Hong Kong nightclub in 1995. She later made the move from England to Sydney to be with him.

But on this occasion, Jane surprised her brother – who was just 14 months her junior – with a special trip.

‘She asked if I wanted to come to New York with her,’ recalls Jon, of his sister’s birthday surprise. ‘We had a wonderful few days together.’