Actually what we did, we all sat round in a circle and somebody said it would be an idea to go round the circle and find out what had happened to everybody. And we were absolutely amazed at how many things had happened, to different people, had happened to all of us.

And a lot of the feelings wed got, the feelings of despair, the feelings of not being clean even.

Stupid feelings that we all, I mean you can see with hindsight, I suppose in some ways were justified through what had happened to you, but on the other hand if you’d had somebody to talk to, to know that this was a natural feeling or something that was happening to you it would’ve been better.

It wouldn’t have had half the impact on you. You wouldn’t have got so many, you used to get very upset about things and for no reason. And as I say, if you’d had somebody to talk to that would’ve been better altogether.

There was little recognition of the emotional needs of the person. Little recognition of the need to share and talk things through. And I found it difficult, at that time (you’ve got to remember were going back 28 years) to be able to chat to people or listen to them as I would have liked.

But that, as I say, was the system in at the time. And despite a bit of opposition I suppose at the time we did establish this group in Coventry. And it quickly became self supporting.

So that the students had done all the hard work to set it up, they’d organised the initial meetings and then we found that we could carry on on our own.

They all felt they would have recovered, particularly emotionally, from the trauma of having the, it was mostly mastectomies then, if they’d had someone to share it with and somebody who understood. And somebody who was not emotionally involved in the family.

The group is called the Young Ones and it was formed in October 2000 by Rachel Farron who sadly has died since from a re-occurrence of inflammatory breast cancer.

And we meet once a month, we have a coffee, we have a chat. Occasionally we have guest speakers, events. We do fundraising as well obviously to cover the running costs of the group. And the events aren’t just to cover the running costs they’re also to raise awareness of the fact that we are there as a support group and there are other groups in the area that we work alongside that support women with breast cancer.

And the group is open to families and friends and children to come along as well. And occasionally friends of members will come.

I think being younger as well does give us another thing in common because at different age groups obviously your experiences are different. The things that you want to talk about can be different. Like I said, how your sex life may be affected, how your children may be affected.

I think while you’re between your diagnosis and the time you’re in hospital, if you haven’t been in a job long enough, you’re only paid at least three months, I think it is, full pay, probably a few weeks or months half pay.

Then you have to get onto someone to help you or not. This is where Cancer Black Care was there for me because they fill out the forms. They do most of the phoning around. And they make sure that I was looked after in that way.

Because if you’ve got problems, if you’ve got worries, it doesn’t help your situation. It doesn’t, because you’re worrying how you’re going to pay the bill, how you’re going to feed the children, how you’re going to do this.

As I say [name] fill out my forms for me. They try and help me as best they could.

Were all able to share our fears, our highs, our lows, our information gathering. We all watch out for each other in that if we find anything of interest that may help somebody then we use it.

The vast majority of us keep folders on information that we gather and we exchange books and all sorts of things and we do have a good time, we do have a good laugh. A lot of those ladies now I would say that they are very dear to me.

We lost one recently and of course this is the reality of the disease. We will lose particular people along the way. We are sympathetic, we miss her. And I say a prayer for her because that’s as much as I can do at this point in time.

But we know that we gave it our best shot whilst she was with us and that it’s not us. This is the reality of the situation and this will happen. It’s the nature of the disease.

I never really felt I needed to go to a support group. I think there is one locally.

But I could get to all the information I needed – I can search the web and I’ve got access to medical libraries – so I didn’t really feel there was any need to get information.

And I was getting enough support at work and at home. I didn’t really need to join a group.

But in some ways I don’t know that I’d have found it helpful. Because I didn’t particularly want to dwell on having cancer. I wanted, it was part of my life, but I wanted to go on living the way I had before.

So I didn’t want it to become that important a part of my life. So it was trying to keep it in, just as another part of my life but not making it a specially big part of my life.

I went to a breast cancer support group in [place] and I went to one in [place] and I was very wary of going to these because I thought’ “I don’t want to sit around with a lot of women talking about everything.”

The women were extremely nice at both of them. And I suppose it was comforting to look at other women who had had mastectomies perhaps, one 17 years ago. Really I mean they’re nice women, and they have interesting speakers, and, you know, they’re friendly. But how can they offer you support when weve all had it and were all wary of each other – to a certain extent? And theres nobody that can say to you’ “Fine, you’re absolutely cured. “You’re never going to have it again.” And we all know that.So they’re not really support groups.

They’re friendly social groups where, as far as I can see, yes the Macmillan nurse will answer your questions and that’s fine, but I didn’t want to delve too much into these other women’s histories because I didn’t want to hear a lot of it. And others must feel the same as me I’m sure.