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Mum’s love gives Lindsay a belief in the life hereafter
 Once
the most lusted-after member of Ireland’s most successful ever girl-band
B*Witched, beautiful Lindsay Armaou has been married to her boy-band husband
Lee Brennan for almost a year now.
They live in a smart house overlooking a park in Middlesex, recently bought
a spaniel puppy and a kitten, and hope to have children soon.
Lindsay has also just started fronting a new Celtic country band named
Clayton.
But once a year, prompted by a shocking event involving her mother Helen
seven years ago, the 29-year-old takes a trip to a top London hospital
for a medical check-up which will decide her future.
In 2000 B*Witched, also comprising of fellow Dubliners Sinéad O’Carroll
and twins Keavy and Edele Lynch, had topped charts — with hits like
C’est La Vie and Rollercoaster — and performed sell-out tours
around the world.
Lindsay had just taken rare time off to spend Christmas at home in Swords,
Dublin, with her parents but on Boxing Day their celebrations turned to
disaster.
She said: “Mum had suffered cramps and bleeding for about a week.
“She thought ‘Oh, I’m going through the change of life’
and that it was just women’s things’.
“But on Boxing Day, mum really started haemorrhaging badly. She
turned blue and screamed: ‘Phone an ambulance!’ which of course
I did straight away.”
The singer thought her mother was going to die right there and then and
had no idea what could be wrong.
She said: “I’ve never seen anyone look like that.
“The ambulance took mum to the Rotunda Hospital where they stopped
the bleeding and kept her overnight.
“It wasn’t until late the next day that she was seen by a
doctor, who said: ‘We’re going to have to do a D&C (Dilation
& Curettage)’ which involved cleaning out the uterus area.”
The doctor later delivered a deathly blow to Lindsay and revealed that
there was a large tumour on her mother’s cervix, which was unlikely
to be benign.
She said: “I can’t describe how it felt to hear that, or to
be at mum’s side when she woke up and was told by the doctor.
“She just kind of listened. She didn’t cry, and nor did I
— throughout her illness, I never cried in front of her because
I wanted to be strong for her.”
Lindsay knew there was a history of breast cancer in her family —
which killed a great-aunt on her mother’s side — but not cervical
cancer.
She said: “Cervical cancer is one you can detect early on if you
go for regular smear tests, which unfortunately Mum had not done.
“By the time they found the cancer, it was too late. It had spread.
“Mum underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and halfway through
that treatment her specialist told dad and I, ‘though we’re
treating her, her chances of surviving are practically zero’.”
It was a terrible blow for the young singer and her father.
She said: “That was a terrible blow. Unbelievable. I absolutely
bawled my eyes out. I was uncontrollable.
“We looked into alternative therapies and even took her to a spiritual
healer, but it was too late.
“I don’t know how I had conversations with mum knowing what
was going to happen.
“But I remember mum saying: ‘Whatever happens, I now know
I’ve come here to do my job, which was to bring you up’.
“I was too choked to reply.”
The pop star’s mother was then transferred to St. Luke’s Hospital,
where she died shortly afterwards just one week short of her 54th birthday.
Lindsay said: “We had soft music playing in her room and we were
all there with her, me, dad, Lee, mum’s sisters, her best friend
Denise, and Keavy, Edele and Sinead.
“I sang to mum a few times and talked to her.
“That was hard to do without crying, but I didn’t want her
to hear me upset so I tried to stay upbeat and cheerful for her.
“One night the nurses said that mum wasn’t going to make it
through the night.
“I totally freaked out and started sobbing. This was it; my worst
nightmare was happening.
“We stayed up all night waiting, but she didn’t go.
“She stayed with us through the next day too. She was a fighter.
“By the time the next night came, I had calmed down a lot and almost
made my peace with the fact that she was going.
“I was so exhausted physically and emotionally that I fell asleep
in the empty hospital room next to hers, with Lee and the girls.
“At 3.20am, I was woken up and told that she’d passed away
peacefully a moment before — on March 27, 2001.
“Her sisters and my dad were with her when she died. I believe she
didn’t die the night before because she knew I wasn’t ready
to let her go.
“When I went into her room, she looked peaceful. It’s a very
surreal experience to see someone so close to you with no life in them.
“It was like she was gone from this body, she was no longer here.
But I know she’s somewhere out there watching over me, and we’ll
meet again.”
Speaking for the first time about her tragic loss, she added: “Losing
mum was like losing a part of myself.
“I wrote a poem for her at the funeral, but I was too upset to read
it out so her friend Denise did that for me.
“That poem is now inscribed on her grave at Mount Jerome Cemetery.”
Lindsay was born and brought up in Athens where her father Yannis, now
64, ran a hotel until earlier this year.
When Lindsay was 13 her parents temporarily separated and she was brought
by her mother Helen, a model and hairdresser turned housewife, to her
hometown Dublin.
As an only child Lindsay was particularly close to her parents.
She said: “Mum and I were like sisters. When we lived in Greece,
dad was always working so it was very much me and mum all the time.
“We did everything together. She thought the world of me and always
made me feel incredibly special, that I could do anything I wanted.
“I’m also very close to my dad and, when mum and I moved to
Ireland, it was very hard and I missed him like mad.
“I’d go back with mum to Athens for summer and Christmas holidays.”
When Lindsay visits Dublin several times each year, she always includes
a visit to her mother’s grave.
She said: “Once, just months after mum died, I rang Edele from my
mobile before entering the cemetery.
“I then took flowers and said a prayer at the graveside. When I
returned to my car, I pressed the redial button on my mobile to call Edele
again, and noticed to my astonishment that it was ringing my mum’s
old number.
“How that can be I have no idea, as Edele was definitely the last
person I’d called.
“It freaked me out but I felt it must have been mum thanking me
for visiting her, which was lovely. I’ve often had vivid dreams
about mum, and I still talk to her.
“I believe in life after death.”
Lindsay’s husband is 34-year-old Lee Brennan whose family has ties
in Stillorgan, Dublin.
Ironically Lee had Hodgkin’s disease (cancer of the lymph glands)
twice in his youth — when he was aged nine and 16.
Both times he had surgery to remove the tumour, and chemotherapy, spending
much of his childhood in hospital.
Lee went on to become a key member of boy-band 911 whose hits between
1996 and 1999 included 13 singles and four albums.
Lindsey said: “When 911 split in 2000, Lee suffered from depression
and had to have counseling for several months.
“I did what I could to help him and, then when my mum died, Lee
helped me.
“By the time B*Witched broke up (in Spring 2002), I was still too
upset about my mum to be down about the band.”
Lee and Lindsay had got together nine years ago, and moved in together
a year later.
They sold her mother’s house in Swords in 2003.
And the couple’s wedding in September of last year was splashed
across nine pages of OK! magazine.
Lindsey said: “I really missed mum that day, so I made a speech
in which I talked about her.”
A week after her own nuptials Lindsay’s father Yannis also got married,
to a Greek lady named Machi.
Lindsay said: “Dad was devastated after mum died and had resigned
himself to being on his own for the rest of his life.
“I was worried about him, and then he got involved with Machi.
“He asked me how I felt about it, and said ‘I won’t
pursue it if you feel strange about it’.
“But I was thrilled and told him ‘I want you to be happy and
have a life. You deserve it’.”
Many times a year, Lee and Lindsay either visit or are visited by Yannis
and Machi.
And when they’re not together, Lindsay telephones her father every
night.
She said: “I’ve still got my dad but I’m very aware
that one day I won’t, which makes me feel very alone — even
though I’m married and I may have kids by the time that happens.”
Lindsay would ideally like a boy and a girl.
And, if she has a girl, she’ll give her the middle name Helen —
after her mum.
Two years ago, Lindsay herself faced a fleetingly uncertain future.
At her annual medical at the exclusive Cromwell Hospital, there was cause
for concern.
She said: “I had a cervical scare.
“I then had pre-cancerous cells removed. I was very lucky.
“They were caught at a time when there were very few.
“It made me realise how different things would have been for my
mum had they caught hers in time.”
n Info on Lindsay Armaou’s new band can be found at www.officialclayton.com
where their debut EP It Was Meant To Be is available. |
