Silence descends upon a family when a physician refers to “weeks” rather than “years.” That silence is familiar to Tricia Penrose. In the summer of 2010, she was sitting next to her mother Sue in a Manchester consulting room when she heard it. The atmosphere was heavy with the kind of tension that doesn’t go away when you return to the parking lot.
Her mother’s right lung had a four-inch tumor that was stage three and incurable. The kind of diagnosis that changes a calendar. The timing seemed almost poetic to viewers who had grown up watching her pull pints as Gina Ward in Heartbeat. But Tricia herself once described it as something stranger a coincidence too neat to be coincidental.
The last episode of the ITV drama concluded in May. When her mother was diagnosed in June, her seventeen years of labor came to an end just in time for her to take care of the one thing that really mattered. From a distance, it’s difficult not to wonder if she would have left anyhow.
| Bio Data | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Patricia “Tricia” Penrose |
| Date of Birth | 9 April 1970 |
| Birthplace | Liverpool, England |
| Profession | Actress, Singer, Broadcaster |
| Famous Role | Gina Ward in Heartbeat (ITV) |
| Years on Heartbeat | 1993 – 2010 (17 years) |
| Other TV Work | The Royal, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, The Bill, Boon |
| Spouse | Mark Simpkin (TV presenter, businessman) |
| Children | Jake and Freddy |
| Current Work | BBC Radio 4 shows (since 2021), Simply Travel Brokers |
| Personal Health Concern | Lung cancer fears from years of singing in smoky clubs |
| Mother’s Illness | Stage 3 inoperable lung cancer (diagnosed 2010) |
| Charity Work | Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation supporter |
Sue Gordon, a former cleaner from Oldham who began smoking at age 11 and used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, was 56 when she received the news. She had already lost her own mother to emphysema, survived cervical cancer in her late 30s, and given up smoking on the day her grandson Jake was born. In some ways, this quiet act of love came just in time, but it was too late to repair the damage.
She was given two to three weeks by the doctors. Somehow, over ten years later, she is still here. With the kind of candid detail that journalists seldom get, Tricia recounts the tale of those early days.
There was the time she crashed her car into her own home’s gates. She didn’t quite know where she was as she strolled through Manchester in the rain that afternoon. Her mother was telling her to get a grip while she lay in a hospital bed. “You’ve got two young kids and I’m going to be fine.” The toughness that runs in the family is evident in Tricia’s current speech pattern. Which is softer and more collected while maintaining an unwavering Liverpool edge.
While receiving chemotherapy and IMRT, a more modern type of radiation, at The Christie, Sue moved into the family’s Cheshire home. The chemotherapy took 30 minutes on some days. On other days, it lasted until six.
Tricia drove her mother to and from appointments, prepared special drinks, and endured the quiet moments. She saw Sue begin to inquire about funeral plans, whether her daughter was content, and other typical questions people ask when cleaning up before they depart. After that, Tricia would leave the room and collapse in a hallway.
A medication known as pemetrexed, sold under the brand name Alimta and more frequently used to treat mesothelioma, marked a turning point. Sue was warned that it might either kill her or save her. The tumor shrank to a size of approximately one inch.
By all accounts, the doctors were perplexed. She has outlived the prognosis in a way that seems almost stubborn, a refusal that feels more like personality than medicine. Tricia has stated, “My kids are her medicine”, and you can tell she means it.
The story of Tricia Penrose’s illness is not just about her mother’s recuperation. The more subdued undercurrent is Tricia’s own anxiety that she could be the next. She is eager to emphasize that she has never smoked. Starting at the age of 14. She performed in Liverpool’s working men’s clubs. Frequently with her mother in a duo known as Second Image. In settings so heavy with smoke that she could feel it scratching her throat in between songs.
The performer Roy Castle, who rose to prominence as the public face of lung cancer awareness in Britain, had never smoked either. He had simply worked in the same types of rooms. She records a charity single. Participates in Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation events with her husband Mark. And continues to discuss it long after most celebrities would have moved on to the next press cycle.
She seems to view the foundation’s work as, in a sense, personal insurance; research done now could result in treatment for her or her boys in the future. It’s unclear if she will ever be free of that fear probably not. She has also talked about her own lifelong battle with weight. Her yo-yo dieting. And the awkward incident in Dubai where a pool attendant asked her to move away from a water slide because she thought she was pregnant.
A former soap opera star who acknowledges that she enjoys a glass of wine and garlic bread and who would prefer to work at the school rather than pursue a West End contract is endearing. Now that you’ve seen her interviews, it seems like she’s quietly figured out what matters and has stopped apologizing for it. Her family’s illness caused everything to change, and she sounds lighter as a result.
i) https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/501129/Tricia-Penrose-Mum-s-cancer-battle
ii) https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/real-lives/cancer-fear-after-singing-career-9039035
iii) https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/tricia-penroses-agony-over-shoplifting-823016
iv) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricia_Penrose
v) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/former-heartbeat-pin-up-tricia-penrose-5649228