She had just revealed that the breast cancer she had already so bravely battled in 2010 had returned. And this time it had spread to her brain, lungs, liver and bones.
"OK, it's not curable," said the singer and actress, "but the doctors have promised me the cancer is treatable, it's containable. I'm on medication which is controlling it and people have lived for 12 years on these drugs. Who knows what new treatments are around the corner? I refuse to sit around like I've got a death sentence hanging over my head. I'm going to fight this for ever. It can get stuffed."
But cancer is no respecter of such defiant courage and yesterday morning Bernie succumbed to the disease at the age of 52. Having been cared for in a hospice since February, she had returned home to be with her family ? husband Steve Doneathy and 14?year?old daughter Erin ? for her final few days. The statement released yesterday by her publicist was short but moving.
"Bernie passed away peacefully this morning with all of her family around her. The entire family are devastated to have lost beloved Bernie, a wonderful wife, adoring mother and loving sister. She is irreplaceable."
Bernie, who was best known as the lead singer of The Nolans, had originally continued on a tour with the musical Chicago after she had been told the cancer had returned last year, not revealing to her costars the awful news she had been given. But she later admitted she "struggled keeping it a secret" and "hated" lying so revealed her condition to the world. She added: "It is harder this time because that word has come into it ? incurable."
When she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 she became the third Nolan sister to have battled the disease following her sisters Anne and Linda, who were diagnosed in 2000 and 2006 respectively and who have since recovered. Despite losing her hair through chemotherapy and having a mastectomy, Bernie continued with her TV work, would regularly appear at events without a wig and gave her steadfast support to breast cancer charities.
I refuse to sit around like I've got a death sentence hanging over my head. I'm going to fight this for ever. It can get stuffed.
SHE was told she was in remission by the end of that year and by 2011 she was well enough to return to work with a touring production of Calendar Girls. However, when she was told the disease had returned she began writing her life story, not wanting to be defined by the disease. The book Now And Forever, serialised in a newspaper recently, makes for heart?rending reading, all the more so because she became too ill to finish the final pages which were completed by her husband.
In the memoir she revealed that she wanted to fight on because of her daughter Erin. "I desperately want to see her grow into the beautiful woman I know she will be. For that reason alone, I will never stop fighting," she said, adding that telling Erin the cancer had returned was one of the hardest things she ever had to do. "Steve and I talked it over and decided to tell her the cancer had come back in my breast and that I'd be taking pills to treat it. She asked if I was going to die. She'd asked me that a lot lately."
Bernie also outlined her decline and the worsening of her symptoms in her memoir, adding that one of the hardest blows was discovering she could no longer sing. "Although I'm a very positive person, there's only so much you can take," she said. "My life had been blessed by music. Whenever I have been happy, music has helped me celebrate. Whenever I have been sad, it's been a friend. It has never let me down."
She added: "Cancer has become a part of my journey but it's not the whole story. There's so much more to me than that. I'm a wife, mother, daughter, singer, actress, sister, friend and auntie. Those are the roles I want to define me. I tried to approach every day as a new beginning and think, 'Right, what's next?' I couldn't sit around thinking, 'I'm going to die.' I haven't done too badly have I? I've had a wonderful child, a great husband, a lovely home, a fantastic family, beautiful friends and a career that's lasted half a century. And I've had lots of fun and laughter along the way."
Bernie was the second youngest of the six Nolan sisters born to Tommy and Maureen Nolan in Dublin in 1960. The others are Anne, Denise, Linda, Maureen and Coleen and there are also brothers Tommy and Brian. Growing up in Ireland, the family would perform as a singing troupe and Bernie once confessed: "It got to the stage where they didn't talk about whether the new baby was going to be a boy or a girl but whether they could sing."
It was the all?female line?up without the brothers that became a commercial success. By 1974 five of the siblings began performing as The Nolan Sisters (Coleen was too young, although Bernie and Linda were still only in their teens). They were pretty, enthusiastic and cheerful and sang a brand of breezy, unthreatening, catchy disco pop that was perfect for the time.
A WHOLESOME line?up, they appeared on Cliff Richard's TV show, on Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies and also supported Frank Sinatra on his 1975 European tour.
"People like the Two Ronnies and Val Doonican liked working with us because we were not showbizzy kids," Bernie once said. "We weren't pretentious or obnoxious, we could just sing."
In 1979 with Denise having left the band they appeared on the Eurovision Song Contest and in the same year they had their biggest hit, the gloriously upbeat and bouncy I'm In The Mood For Dancing. By the early Eighties they were known simply as The Nolans and Anne temporarily left to be replaced by the now 15?year?old Coleen.
More hits continued (they have sold 25 million records worldwide, 12 million of which were in Japan) but by the mid?Eighties the popularity of the band waned. Bernie herself left in 1994 and she has only recently revealed the difficulties the sisters faced in the early days. Their father, it has emerged, was drunk and abusive, driving them home from gigs while he was way over the limit and instigating thundering rows during which he hit their mother. Anne, meanwhile, has revealed he sexually abused her at the age of 11, something that shocked the entire family.
After leaving the band Bernie took to the stage, performing in productions including Blood Brothers in London's West End, Flashdance and Chicago. She also enjoyed a second career as a TV actress, appearing in Brookside from 2000?02 and joining ITV's police drama The Bill in 2003 as Sergeant Sheelagh Murphy. She also reached the final of ITV's Popstar To Operastar in 2010.
The band reunited for a successful, multi?million?pound comeback tour in 2009 but the fact that organisers left out Anne from the line?up caused a bitter rift between the close sisters, something that Bernie ? who was on good terms with all her siblings ? had hoped could be put behind them.
Bernie often credited her husband Steve ("the love of my life") for getting her through the hard times. The pair met in 1991 and married in 1996 and two years later had to face the tragic stillbirth of their first daughter Kate. Happily Erin was born a year later. "She is a blessing from God," Bernie once said. "I loved her from the first moment I held her in my arms, unconditionally and everlastingly."
Speaking a few months ago about Bernie's struggle with cancer, Steve revealed that the singer kept to her resolve and kept fighting the disease, somehow managing to keep "some fire in her belly" and retaining her positive outlook in the most testing of circumstances.
"The way she's coped with her illness is awe?inspiring," he said. "I know the disease will never beat Bernie's spirit."
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