How We Survived Every Family's Worst Nightmare

It should have been such a happy time: Jules’s 12-year-old daughter, Daisy, had started modelling and was living life to the full. Then she was diagnosed with cancer. The family tell Anna Moore their story...

On the first Saturday in December 2016, Daisy Pye’s godmother was out shopping, weaving through the Christmas crowds, when she found herself staring at Daisy’s photo in the window of a clothing store. This was Daisy as she’d been just months before – a glowing 12-year-old, excited to be modelling childrens wear for a local fashion brand.

“She took a photo and sent it to us,” says Daisy’s mother Jules. “She said it made her feel full of pride, but also full of sadness – because just hours before, she’d been to visit us in hospital where Daisy had started chemo. Daisy was so ill and so frail, looking like an eightyear-old child lying in her hospital bed.”

Jules, 52, a production company producer, could barely believe it herself. Daisy had always been unstoppable, bursting with energy, with so much to live for. Now Jules was in the middle of every mother’s worst nightmare.

She and her daughter live together. Daisy’s dad, Jules’s ex Jimmy, lives nearby and shares her care. “From the minute Daisy could walk, she danced,” says Jules. “Dancing was her passion, but she also did gymnastics.” She was hungry for all that life could offer; a bright, bubbly and confident child. And beautiful. Daisy’s modelling had happened almost accidentally. “A shoe brand needed 11 kids for a TV ad,” says Jules. “Daisy wanted to audition – she went in and did a tap dance, got the part and loved it. That director also worked in fashion – and he asked Daisy to model childrenswear, too.”

A world shattered