'HEARING I HAD CANCER AGAIN WAS AN OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE'

ANNE NOLAN OPENS UP ABOUT THE FEUD WITH HER SISTERS THAT TORE HER FAMILY APART AND HER OUTLOOK ON LIFE AFTER OVERCOMING CANCER TWICE

- ALISON GRAVES

We’ve just finished the very first exclusive shoot and sit-down chat with Anne Nolan ahead of her latest book launch, and she’s left us feeling uplifted and inspired. Despite going through some dark times and heartache during her 72 years, she remains positive and has a strength about her that's rare.

Titled New Beginnings, her autobiography follows on from Anne’s Song, which caused a whirlwind reaction when it was released in 2009, and is packed with explosive and emotive stories.

Unravelling her truth at long last has been vital for Anne, who tells us, I just wanted to write my life story, really. It’s important for my family to know who was in time gone by.”

Finding fame in the 1970s with girl group The Nolans, she sang alongside her sisters Coleen, Linda, Maureen, Denise and the late Bernie. Since then, she’s navigated turbulent years to say the least, having battled cancer twice and endured a four-year feud with her sisters. She’s also experienced the breakdown of her marriage to Brian Wilson, divorcing in 2007.

She reveals in the book how the rift with her siblings tore the family apart and says her stomach dropped” when she was excluded from a family tour, named I’m In The Mood Again in reference to their hit I’m In The Mood For Dancing. This was one of the band’s biggest successes and the record that Anne sang, performed and promoted.

She explains the overwhelming sense of betrayal” she felt, but doesn’t expect her book to open old wounds and cause further rifts with her sisters.

“Coleen, Bernie and Linda have all written books speaking about the fall-out. haven't read them but I've been told. And there was a book before this, with Maureen in it too, where the four of them told their side of the story,” she says.