Woman who beat cancer twice, Gill Collins, inspires school charity runners

Published: 18 June 2010
by RÓISÍN GADELRAB

SHE has had cancer twice and lost her husband to the terrible disease more than 20 years ago, but teaching assistant Gill Collins refuses to be defeated.

Ms Collins, who has taught at St Luke’s Primary School in Finsbury for 21 years, inspired teachers and pupils to run the 5k Race for Life in her name last week.

Wearing T-shirts bearing a photograph of Ms Collins, the 16 runners and walkers raised more than £2,700 for cancer research by completing the race in the City.

Ms Collins, 57, said she was touched when she learned of the race plan. 

“I thought the girls were doing it for people with cancer generally but when they said they were doing it in my name I got really emotional,” she said. 

“They got a photo of me, blew it up and put it on T-shirts. My daughter’s friend had a picture of me on the front and my husband and her mother-in-law on the back. I felt honoured that they would do this for me.”

Ms Collins, a grandmother and mother-of-two, was diagnosed with breast cancer in June last year and underwent two operations as well as a gruelling course of radiotherapy and chemo­therapy.

She said: “It was a major shock. You feel a lump and think it’s nothing. You see a doctor and think it could just be an infection and then a week later you find out you have breast cancer.”

After the first operation – a lumpectomy – it turned out she still had some cancerous cells in her breast and needed a further operation.

She said: “I had cervical cancer 18 years ago and I had a hysterectomy then. I was 39. I lost my husband to cancer 21 years ago so it was a shock to find this one again. This was a bit more severe. 

“I had a lot of support from friends and family and friends at work. The Macmillan nurses were absolutely amazing.”

She added: “I wouldn’t stay indoors. I had to go out every single day unless I was really ill, which wasn’t very often, but you have to be positive. I went out shopping, retail therapy.”

Ms Collins hopes to return to work when she has been given the all-clear but has been back at St Luke’s, in Radnor Street, a few times to see the children and has tried to explain why she has lost most of her hair.

She said: “When I last went back I did have a hat on. They were asking when I’m coming back and I explained that I’d been quite ill but I didn’t say the word cancer as some children can find it quite difficult. 

“Some of my hair has started to grow back. They were asking to see so I took my hat off and they were really cool about it.” She thank­ed pupils for making the race “a very special day”.

Cassie Moss, St Luke’s deputy headteacher, said: “Some of the staff had done it [the race] in previous years as many have been directly affected by cancer in some way, but this year there was a very special reason.”