Brave Lesley's show will go on!

Brave Lesley Knight will take to the stage at the end of the month as Miss Nadia in Clitheroe's Gladys Sutcliffe Theatre School's Dracula Spectacular.

Lesley, 49, has postponed treatment for secondary breast cancer at Manchester's Christie Hospital until after four performances on January 19, 20 and 21 at the town's Ribblesdale High School.

But according to Lesley, of Eastfield Drive, West Bradford, bravery doesn't come into it.

She said: "People tell me I'm so brave but it's really not about that. You've got no choice really. Well, I suppose I could sit back, mope around and be miserable but, like I said to my children and husband, I want my epitaph to say I did a lot with my life."

The recurrence of the cancer was diagnosed in September almost exactly eight years since Lesley was first told she had the disease.

Ironically, she was in a play then and that was also postponed.

She said: "It's a little bit spooky. I was in a play in October 1991 and was told in the September that I had breast cancer. That play was postponed until the February of the next year and this time the play has been postponed from October to this month.

"I'm due to have treatment but will wait until February because I'm determined to be in it. It means such a lot to me."

Lesley, a food technology teacher at Accrington's Hollins High School for more than 12 years, has been overwhelmed by the amount of support she has received from family and friends. She said: "Everyone has been so very kind. When I was told the news I was absolutely devastated because I was not expecting it at all. I had no chance to prepare myself. As far as I was concerned I had beaten breast cancer and moved on. I was totally shocked. I couldn't believe it.

"I have been through the anger, the fear, the depths of despair but I think you have to go through those things to come out of the other side and be able to get on with your life.

"Of course I have my occasional bad day where I wonder what on earth I have done to deserve this but it's about getting on and doing it and not sitting around saying I can't do this or that."

Married to husband Ian and with two children, Helen, 24, and Christopher, 20, Lesley was looking forward to enjoying life.

She has already travelled to the Far East and America and had a trip to India planned for spring.

She went on: "They don't give you a prognosis but initially the surgeon said I would be lucky to get five years and I was absolutely horrified at the thought of dying at age 54 or 55. "Of course they can't say what will happen because the next lot of treatment could be a huge success, though I think that if they said there was simply no change I would be getting the champagne out.

"It is like constantly living under a shadow because it is always there and sometimes I wish I could put it away in a drawer for a week, but there are a lot of people who are a lot worse and would give their right arm to be like me."

The show, to be held in the drama complex of the school in Queen's Road, Clitheroe, is in aid of the East Lancashire Hospice Appeal.

It is a charity close to Lesley's heart, though the beneficiary had already been decided by the group before she heard she had the disease.

"When I was told I remember thinking how am I going to die? Will I be in a hospice, desperately poorly, frail and with everyone around me crying? I don't know if I can handle that and if I'm honest I've always been afraid to die.

"I think it has something to do with being in control, that's the problem, the fear of the unknown.

"But we are all going to die. Life is fragile and only a whisper away from being over. The doctors are currently trying to extend it for me and, while they do that, I will be living it to the full."

Tickets for the show are priced £5 and available from the theatre school in St James Street, Clitheroe, or by telephoning 01200 425629.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.