Why I made coconut and cherry cake for the first time in 30 years

Making memories, family loss and the symptoms everyone should know...

Jun 09, 2025

This is one of my favourite snaps: me with my Nan Flo. Yes, I used to be blonde. I’m guessing it was taken at the tail end of the long hot summer of 1976. I was two. The heat had been so stifling my mum resorted to sitting me in a green Addis washing up bowl of water on the lawn. I looked pretty happy about it, too; I have the photo.

I adored my Nan and saw her often. She lived around the corner in the house she and Grandad began to rent after they wed a few months before the outbreak of World War II. I have her yearly rent books. All 57 of them. Walking the mile into town together always took an age. She knew so many people, we kept stopping to talk. She even knew Santa when we visited him at Chiesmans department store. I was very impressed.

Nan’s house was the place we watched Lorne Greene and Michael Landon galloping about the Ponderosa in Bonanza. She loved a Western. We also enjoyed black-and-white Busby Berkeley films with their kaleidoscopic dance sequences and were very keen on Bergerac. Well, who wasn’t? Seventeen million watched maverick detective sergeant Jim oozing sex appeal as he zoomed round the stunning island of Jersey in his just-as-swoon-worthy 1947 Triumph Roadster.

I only have to hear the twangy guitar of that theme tune and I’m sitting in front of her Radio Rentals telly once more. (She’d have been tickled to know just how many times I’ve interviewed John Nettles over the years to publicise Midsomer Murders.) The smell of Nivea and Oil of Olay (it will always be Ulay to me) always brings her to mind, too. My earliest memory, though, is of her walking me home when I was four and, halfway there, realising she was still wearing her slippers.

Nan always had fresh supplies of stationery (she worked in a card and gift shop), Woolworths pick ’n’ mix – I loved those spearmint chews – and, most importantly, magazines and newspapers. She swapped issues with a neighbour and saved me interviews with my childhood favourites. No doubt, that’s a reason I decided by the age of 11 to become a journalist. I grew up to write for those titles she always had on the sideboard: Woman’s Own, Woman and Woman’s Weekly.

Today, it’s 30 years since Nan died from ovarian cancer. It doesn’t seem possible, but then it never does, does it, when you count those years without someone? The pink peony I gave her a couple of years before she died now grows in my Dad’s garden. I have part of it in mine, too. They flowered early this year, but there was one bloom left to take to her final resting place at the crematorium.

‘It tasted divine 30 years ago… and still does’

A couple of weeks ago, Dad found the old blue notebook in which she’d recorded some of her favourite recipes in that still familiar writing. So, this year, he and I decided to bake her much-loved coconut and cherry cake. She and I often used to make it together. Proceedings began with a familiar routine: one glacé cherry for Katherine, one for Nan, one for the cake…

The little red blighters often ended up at the base of our bake, but it didn’t matter. It tasted divine… and still does. Nan would have loved that they didn’t all sink to the bottom this time. Despite that tiny victory, I don’t think I’d get a Hollywood Handshake for my efforts – even after interviewing Bake Off judges about their tips many times over the last decade. That doesn’t matter, though. We made it together.

I imagine I would get a few quips from Paul and Prue about the magnificent crack that opened up across the top. Apparently, Dad’s oven runs rather hot. (Even at a lower temperature, our cake was ready 15 minutes earlier than the recipe suggested). I’ll blame it on that. If you fancy having a go at making it with someone you love, the recipe is below.

I’d love it if you’d also pass on the symptoms of ovarian cancer. My Nan’s GP didn’t recognise them. Please make sure you – and those you love – do.

They are:

Persistent bloated tummy

Always feeling full

Tummy pain

Needing to wee more

Of course, these symptoms may not be cancer at all, but it’s always best to get things checked out just in case. Early diagnosis saves lives.

I remember coming home from university the Christmas before Nan died and her sitting at our kitchen table saying her skirt wouldn’t do up. There was a gap of at least an inch, her tummy was so bloated. Her GP had suggested it was trapped wind and told her to try an over-the-counter liquid remedy for indigestion and gas. By Boxing Day, her pain was so bad we had to take her to A&E. They discovered she actually had a grapefruit-sized tumour. Nan had the growth removed and had chemotherapy, but died just over five months later aged 79. It was just before my 21st birthday.

'Many of us still don’t know the signs of ovarian cancer’

Nan’s story is a familiar one. Each year in the UK, 7,400 are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, yet many of us still don’t know the signs of ovarian cancer. There’s no regular screening available, either. A smear test every three to five years only checks for abnormal cells in the cervix that could potentially develop into cervical cancer, it doesn’t detect ovarian cancer. It’s not as high profile as breast cancer, either. Women have been told for years to check their boobs and attend mammograms when invited by the NHS after their 50th birthday. I’ve just had my first one in a screening van (bizarrely named Katherine) parked in Morrisons supermarket car park.

Thanks to the efforts of charities such as Target Ovarian Cancer, though, more and more people are learning the symptoms and spreading the word. That way, we can express any worries we might have to our GP and advocate for tests. You can learn more about the symptoms of ovarian cancer and risk factors on their website at www.targetovariancancer.org.uk.

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When I joined Substack last year, I intended it to continue with general showbiz interviews. Due to circumstances – including the many and varied joys of perimenopause – it had a bit of a false start and has since undergone a change of name and purpose. Act Two: Beginners – as it’s now called – will, I hope, become a place for over-45s navigating their second act and coping with (or making) many changes of their own.

Maybe we’re dealing with grief: the loss of family, friends, jobs or relationships. Maybe we’re looking for new challenges or planning adventures. Maybe we want to recalibrate and reconnect with what really matters to us. Whatever our stage of life, we’re always Works In Progress and, hopefully, Act Two: Beginners will provide support and inspiration as we cultivate our lives over-45.

This post wasn’t how I intended to relaunch my space, but suddenly it seemed a good opportunity to talk about ovarian cancer. Our ovaries are out of sight and so often out of mind, but those of us over 50 have a higher risk of developing the disease. More than half of cases are in those over 65. And remember, even if you’ve had your ovaries and fallopian tubes removed, a small risk remains.

Moving forward, Act Two: Beginners will have chats with people in the public eye aged 45 to 100 about topics that concern us all at this time of life. There’ll be words of wisdom from experts, too… alongside occasional less expert ramblings from me. Feel free to let me know the things (or people) you’d find of interest.

It won’t be a well-oiled machine yet. Although I’ve been a showbiz journalist for 28 years, I’m new to all this and perimenopause can make me feel like I’m trying to drive with the handbrake on. Even so, I hope you’ll subscribe and join me on the journey.

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The method

Mix the sieved flour, salt and caster sugar in a bowl and rub in the margarine or butter (we used the latter) until it’s the texture of fine breadcrumbs. Rinse off the syrup from the cherries, halve them and coat them in the coconut. Whisk the eggs and milk together. Add the cherry mix and liquid to the dry ingredients and gently fold everything together. Pop the batter into a lined tin (mine was 21cm) and bake. When you can push in a skewer and it comes out clean, it’s cooked. (Keep an eye out and maybe do the skewer test after 75 minutes to see how it’s doing. It may need a piece of foil on top to stop it getting too dark.)