Springwatch’s Michaela Strachan is set to grace our screens in Dancing On Ice and has recently opened up about a “relentlessly sad” year filled with personal tragedy. While speaking on the On The Marie Curie Couch podcast, the 58 year old presenter described the past year as “really sad.”
She recounted the losses within her close circle, beginning with her sister-in-law, sharing: “There was a lot of loss in my close circle of family and friends, starting off at the beginning of the year with the passing of my sister-in-law who died of cancer… she suffered for three years and eventually passed in January.”
Michaela also spoke about how her partner Nick Chevallier’s previous wife had died from cancer, which made his sister’s passing particularly poignant. Around the same time, Nick’s best friend died of a heart attack, adding to their grief.
Michaela Strachan
(Image: (Image: Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror ))
Further compounding the sadness, Michaela mentioned the death of a close friend’s son at just 35 years old, describing it as “heartbreakingly sad to watch a mother go through that kind of loss”. She reflected on her friend’s vibrant personality, noting: “But that light will never be as bright again because she’s lost a child. And knowing how to help and be there for that friend was very difficult.”
However, the most heart-wrenching loss for Michaela was her dear friend Lucy. “She had a very similar breast cancer to myself. She had a very similar diagnosis to myself and they said, ‘We’ve caught it early. It’s a small bit of cancer in one breast. We’ll do a mastectomy. We’ll put you on Tamoxifen. You’ll be fine’.”
“Which is exactly the same as I had,” Michaela continued. “And here I am 10 years later and I am fine. My friend wasn’t so lucky and hers came back and it spread and we lost her last year.
“And so I walked that journey with my friend, Lucy. And so that hit me really hard. Losing Lucy hit me hard.”
Michaela expressed that, having experienced cancer herself, she felt as if she had managed to “get it right,’ when it came to supporting her friend Lucy: “She was given three months to a year and she lived over a year.
“So she exceeded the length that she was given. And knowing how to be with her and with her family was really difficult, very difficult. But with her, I felt I got it right.”