The husband of Bernie Nolan has spoken of how thieves broke into their home and stole some of Bernie's most treasured possessions - just days after she learned her cancer was terminal.
Steve Doneathy told the Sunday Mirror that the 52-year-old singer and actress had been in a hospice when the robbery occurred at their house in Surrey.
And as well as stealing a car, TV and his watch, the intruders broke a memory box Bernie keeps of her daughter Kate, who was tragically stillborn.
"We have a little box in the front room that has a padlock on it," Steve said, "where we keep photographs of Kate.
“It’s full of pictures and sympathy cards from people and it’s got her little hospital bracelet with her name on it. They’d smashed the padlock off that and tipped it all over the floor, just in case it was full of jewellery.
He added: “They also stole a watch Bernie gave me on our wedding day, engraved on the back, ‘To Steve, all the way, Bernie’ with the date of our wedding on.
“That’s the thing that upsets me, especially at the moment. I’d have kept it forever."
Bernie - who scored a string of hits with her singing sisters as well as appearing in TV shows including Brookside and Popstar To Operastar - learned the tragic news about her cancer battle after being taken ill in Blackpool last month.
She had previously beaten breast cancer - which also affected sisters Ann and Linda - after being diagnosed with the disease in 2010 - but was told last summer it had returned and was incurable.
