Sarah Beeny

Property guru Sarah Beeny lived for years with the threat of cancer (Image: Getty)

Every year almost 56,000 British women are diagnosed with breast cancer – that’s 153 each day.

It goes without saying this is news no woman ever wants to receive but property guru Sarah Beeny, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in August last year, feels grateful she found out when she did.

“All my life, I’d lived in particular fear of being told I had breast cancer as my mother Ann passed away from the disease – which spread to her brain – when I was 10 years old, and she was 39,” says the broadcaster.”

“I always assumed that I, too, would receive a diagnosis. But so many advances have been made since my mum’s diagnosis.”

“Having cancer has made me stop being frightened of the disease in a way. It’s forced me to lift the lid on the thing and just kind of face it, rather than fear it. If it’s caught early, breast cancer is no longer the death sentence people used to think it was. I feel extremely lucky I was diagnosed in 2022 and treated over the following months. Also, very lucky the disease hadn’t spread anywhere else.”

Nonetheless, it’s been a tough year for Sarah, now 51. Her treatment involved undergoing a double mastectomy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Happily, she received the all clear a couple of months ago but says she will be forever on her guard.

“Technically speaking, it means my treatment’s finished and that there is no more cancer,” she explains. “It’s a bit like, ‘So far, so good’!”

“Hopefully it is the end, but I’ll always have to be vigilant, have regular check-ups, take certain drugs for a very long time and contact my doctors again if I suspect it might have come back.”

Sarah Beeny

Sarah Beeny with her family (Image: Express)

The clean bill of health is of course down to the treatment she’s received. However, she credits her four sons – Billy, 18, Charlie, 16, Rafferty, 14, and Laurie, 13 – with keeping her spirits up while she was undergoing treatment, and ultimately contributing to her recovery.

“They are amazing,” Sarah says. “They cut my hair off for me before I started chemo and then, when it started growing back, my youngest son, Laurie, dyed it platinum for me.”

“The boys distracted me throughout my treatment – they said that was their job and they did it so well. Their input has been invaluable.”

Part of her sons’ distraction technique was to play cards with their mum. They also formed a band with Sarah’s husband, artist Graham Swift. Called

Entitled Sons, they’re going to perform at Glastonbury Festival this summer, having won their spot in a competition.

“I’m so very proud of them,” Sarah adds. “I can’t wait!”

Sarah Beeny

Sarah Beeny shares her breast cancer journey (Image: Express)

In addition to her boys, Sarah can’t speak highly enough of her husband’s unswerving support since she received her diagnosis.

They met as teenagers through her brother, Diccon, and Graham’s sister Caroline who were dating at the time.

Sarah wasn’t keen initially but soon had a change of heart. That was in the early 90s and they’ve been together ever since. The couple married in 2003.

“He’s been incredible – as have my brother and sister-in-law,” Sarah says. “Another thing I feel very grateful for is having the love and support of family. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer there was a moment where I considered not telling anyone in the world, including my husband and children.”

“Three minutes later I realised that wasn’t going to be possible and I was overwhelmed by the response I received – which highlighted that I was not alone in having long held a disproportionate fear of breast cancer.”

Sarah Beeny

Sarah has made a one-off documentary for Channel 4 (Image: Express)

His is one of the reasons Sarah has made a one-off documentary for Channel 4 about her diagnosis and treatment. Entitled Sarah Beeny: Breast Cancer, My Family and Me, it airs on June 12.

The documentary supports Stand Up To Cancer, a joint national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK ast ion s 3,000 and Channel 4, which over the last 10 years has raised more than £93million in the UK, funding 64 clinical trials and projects involving more than 13,000 cancer patients.

In the film, Sarah meets teams at Cancer Research UK at the cutting edge of research, to find out what the future holds for breast cancer patients and whether her mother might have survived if she’d had the same treatment that Sarah and other women have received in recent times.

“I wanted to show just how far treatment has come in the last 40 years but also to highlight how it affects you, and those around you, both mentally and physically,” she says.

“Ultimately, I want to take some of the fear out of the words ‘You have breast cancer’ and encourage people to seek h elp as early as possible, giving them the best chance of diagnosis and overcoming the disease. “I’m hoping it will be particularly helpful for those women who are dealing with it on their own.”

A cancer diagnosis often changes people’s perspective on life. For Sarah it resulted in a new love of plants. “I’ve become a obsesse h bit obsessed with gardening, which I never was before,” she says.

“I make time for it and it’s become a total joy. Spending time in the greenhouse on my own is heaven.”

During her youth, Sarah initially wanted to be an actress but when that didn’t work out, she set up her property development company aged just 24 with Graham and her brother. She also launched the dating website mysinglefriend.com in 2005.

Her broadcasting career began when she met a TV talent spotter at a hen party in the early noughties. After a screen test for Talkback Thames, she landed her first presenting gig on Property Ladder.

A number of uber-successful property TV shows followed, most recently Sarah Beeny’s New Life In The Country – the story of how Sarah and Graham sold up in London in order to build their dream family home from scratch on an old dairy farm in Somerset.

The third season finished recently and the show has just been re-commissioned for a fourth. A book about the experience will be published this August. As as Sarah is concerned, it is her forever home. “I never want to move again,” she says resolutely.

“It’s presumed that, because Graham and I have a property development business, we must like moving house ourselves, but I don’t. In fact, when Graham at one point said, ‘If we sell this house?’, I immediately replied, ‘Don’t even go there. Don’t let that thought enter your head!'”

“We’ve put our hearts and souls into the house, and have designed and built it very much to our own specifications and needs. Whyever would we want to move from that?”

It’s reassuring to hear Sarah and Graham, like many couples, have the odd spat about decorating and furnishing their dream home.

“Graham is a bit more conservative taste-wise than me and we do have disagreements about that,” she laughs.

“I can be too ‘out there’, though, so we’re a good combination. Graham is incredibly precise when it comes to measurements and dimensions so I never question him about that.”

“If he says a window is a certain size, I don’t dispute it because he’s always right! Graham’s also more patient than me.”

“I always want everything to be done really quickly and, as I’ve learnt over the past few years, that’s not always possible.”

What Sarah has also realised – and wants to shout from the rooftops – is that breast cancer is not the death sentence it once was.

“So many advances have been made since my mum’s diagnosis,” she tells me. “If it’s caught early, so much can now be done.”

Sarah Beeny: Breast Cancer, My Family and Me is on Channel 4 on June 1.

Source: | This article first appeared on Express.co.uk

You May Also Like

Do YOU have enough in your 401(K)? Americans with $500,000 in retirement savings now need nearly $100,000 more than they did pre-Covid for the SAME quality of life, economist warns

American workers need nearly 20 percent more in their 401(K) to have…

Boy, 15, drowns and five others taken to hospital at New Jersey beach

A 15-year-old boy has drowned and four others were taken to hospital…

BBC, Channel 4 and the police launch probe into Russell Brand

After Russell Brand was hit with accusations of sexual assault, more women…

High cholesterol symptoms: Four signs cholesterol has ‘found its way into the ‘brain’

Cholesterol is a waxy substance produced inside the liver that is needed…