‘Mum, I am worried you’re going to die’ 

It was Christmas 1999, and in the midst of the vicious round of chemotherapy my mother was undergoing, my parents took my sister and I to a ski resort. 

If my mum was surprised at the question her five-year-old daughter had asked, she didn’t show it.  

She’d taken ill two days earlier, soon after we arrived, and had been rushed to a doctor nearby. When she returned the following night, it had dawned on me, for the first time in my life, that one day my parents would pass away. 

She calmed me down and said not to worry and to enjoy the rest of the holiday. 

But a few days later, thoughts of my mother’s health came back to haunt me. It mingled with guilt. 

Thinking I’d burdened her with my own fears was mortifying.  

I felt pathetic and never mentioned the incident again. But the feeling that I should know how to deal calmly – before I had even learnt how to read – persisted. 

The shame hung over me for many years to come. 

My mother was in her early thirties when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had no genetic predisposition, no family history; the chances of her getting sick were laughably small. 

I didn’t understand what was happening then, but I know she underwent surgery and chemotherapy early on. I have flashes of her skinny figure in a vast double bed taller than myself. 

She went into remission in 1997, but then in 1999 it returned, this time in her right hip. 

For the next twelve years, cancer hovered over our heads. 

I went about my life as normally as I could. I went to school, I sang in a choir, I took violin lessons – all the while trying to convince myself that things would get better. 

But there were still times where the horrors of my reality burst through my naive ignorance, and I failed to cope. Like the time mum lost her hair – I’ll never forget the way I was unable to mask my reaction. She looked so small. So ill. All I could see was her cancer. 

I hated myself for hating her appearance, and agonised over the split second in which she may have seen the shock in my eyes. I was 13. 

Or the following year, when my mother asked me to pick up the results of a blood test for her, too anxious to see what they might show. 

Unfolding the piece of paper in the waiting room, I broke down at the verdict. Despite all the pain and the treatments, she was still dying. And yet, she had to comfort me, again.  

Suddenly I was five again, unable to cope and make her better. Looking to her for solace on what must have been one of the worst days of her life. 

A month prior to her death, when I was 16, I went on a trip to Vienna with an orchestra I played in. The doctors had  found some nodules had metastasised, so I should have known time was fast running out. 

Celebrating Halloween in various bars of the city, cancer seemed far away – but reality came crashing down the same hour I got back. My father came to pick me up from the coach station on the way to collect my mother up from a therapist appointment. 

She climbed into the car and burst into tears. ‘I am not afraid anymore,’ she told my dad. It wasn’t until two weeks later when my father sent me to stay with my grandparents to shield me from the excruciating final moments, that I understood we had reached the end. 

For a long time after her passing my guilt remained. 

In the gaping hole she left behind, I found solace in biology textbooks. I relished learning anything to do with cancer – it was like a comforting, logical voice making sense of it all.  

Biology gave me another, more unexpected source of healing. I took an internship supervised by a scientist researching cancer in Tasmanian devils. Months later, the scientist met my dad, who’d wanted to thank her for taking good care of me.  

They married some years later. And so, in a strange turn of events, after cancer took my mother, it gave me a younger sister, Flora. 

It has been 15 years now since she died.  

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Flora has just celebrated her seventh birthday. When I was that age, my mother was already on the edge of her second relapse. 

A couple of years ago, Flora became inconsolable after breaking a small plate. More recently, she cried after struggling to memorise a multiplication table. Just last week, she refused to read a book because a character’s misfortune was too upsetting. 

As I comfort her each time, faced with the reality of a child’s emotional landscape, I finally see the sad absurdity of the remorse and guilt I’d been carrying with me. 

Sometimes in her eyes, I recognise a carefree innocence I’d once felt, before I traded it for self-reproach. I cannot change how I grew up, nor, as I assured my mother on her deathbed and many times in dreams, would I have wanted to. 

But it took over a decade and the arrival of Flora, to realise that I was a just kid who did not know how young she was.  

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I did my best in the worst of scenarios. One day, I will accept that.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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The pub is located in a village set in open countryside ideal for the warmer months ahead

Those who live in Cambridge may often find that they choose not to venture far from the city, since there are plenty of great meal spots dotted around. Around 15 minutes from Cambridge by car, nestled in the countryside, is the quaint village of Madingley, home to The Three Horseshoes.

The Three Horseshoes is an award-winning pub which was voted Cambridgeshire Dining Pub of the Year in 2018 and holds two AA Rosettes. It features a garden with plentiful space, two dining pods, and a fully enclosed, heated garden room that sits at the back of its dining room.

The dining pods are fully enclosed with heating and pretty lights and the garden is spacious and picturesque. Described by the pub’s website as a ‘romantic’, Madingley is a beautiful countryside spot.

Offering a rustic and charming appeal, the thatched country pub has earned a positive reputation online. One person described the pub as having a “cosy atmosphere” on Google and another said it was the “best Sunday roast” they have had around Cambridge.

The Three Horseshoes has a unique wine list focusing on the Langeudoc-Roussillon region of France, where the team pride itself on visiting and meeting wine makers many times. It also offers four local real ales and a range of lager and fruity cocktails.

With a modern British and European style for food, the menu offers classics like pie of the day and a 14oz sirloin on the bone to signature dishes like BBQ guineafowl and an aubergine schnitzel dish. A pie of the day sounds like the perfect way to indulge while sunning in their beer garden.

The US President has suggested that change is coming “very soon” for one nation.

Donald Trump has hinted that Cuba could be next on his hit list. The US President previously made offhand comments about “stopping by” Cuba on his way home from Iran.

But in a speech to a conference of Turning Point USA, the group formerly led by slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk, he said change on the island would come “very soon”.

After speaking about US operations on the war in Iran, he turned to Cuba: “Very soon, this great strength will also bring about a day 70 years in waiting. It’s called A New Dawn for Cuba. We’re going to help them out in Cuba.”

He added: “We have a lot of great Cuban Americans. Not too many people in this audience, I don’t think. But you go to Miami, we have people, Cuban Americans, people that were brutally treated, whose families were killed, brutalised, and now watch.”

Cuba’s economy and infrastructure have been in crisis as a result of a US energy blockade following its invasion of Venezuela – their main supplier of oil. The Trump administration has described its government as ineffective and abusive.

In return for easing sanctions, US demands have included an end to political repression, a release of political prisoners and a liberalisation of the island’s ailing economy.

American diplomats recently met with Cuban government officials in the island nation, marking a renewed push for talks even as US Trump has hinted at an invasion. Cuba’s leader said this week that his country is prepared to fight if that should happen.

The Mirror reports that a senior State Department official met with the grandson of retired Cuban leader Raúl Castro last week during the trip, according to a department official, who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke Friday on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The official did not say who from the US met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, whose grandfather is believed to play an influential role in the Cuban government despite not holding an official post. A second US official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was not part of the delegation that visited Havana.

US officials have previously said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime Cuba hawk, met the younger Castro in the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis in February.

During last week’s diplomatic push, the US delegation urged Cuba to make major changes to its economy and way of governing because it would not let the island nation become a national security threat in the region, the State Department official said. It marked the first US government flight to land in Cuba other than at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay since 2016.

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The virus causes more than 20,000 babies in the UK to be seriously ill in hospital every year.

Baby hospital admissions have been seen to plummet in the UK thanks to a vaccine that is given to expecting mothers during pregnancy. This vaccine helps protect newborns from a nasty chest infection that can leave them grasping for breath and unable to feed.

According to new reports from UK health officials, this maternal vaccine has cut hospital admissions for RSV by more than 80 per cent. Since it was launched in 2024, women are offered the vaccine from 28 weeks of pregnancy to help protect their child.

RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) affects many newborns in the first few months of life and causes a chest infection that can lead to the baby becoming seriously ill. Data has shown that this virus has led to more than 20,000 babies in the UK being admitted to hospital each year due to nasty symptoms.

This virus is one of the main reasons babies are admitted to hospital before the age of one, with half of newborns catching RSV. According to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), a new study of the vaccine’s impact shows that it gives “excellent protection” to babies that are the most vulnerable to the virus.

Symptoms of the virus can vary from a mild cold to a life-threatening chest-infection due to inflammation in the lungs. Each year, a small number of babies die from RSV.

The vaccine was first introduced in the UK in 2024 after clinical trials found it would boost a pregnant woman’s immune system enough to pass the protection through the placenta to the baby. This means the babies are born vaccinated from the virus.

The study found that if the vaccine is given at least four weeks before the baby is born then the protection is nearly 85 per cent. However, it does say that some protection is still possible if the jab is given even closer to the due date.

In fact, the study shows that even a two-week gap between vaccination and birth can be long enough to protect babies born earlier than planned, reports the BBC.

However Dr Conall Watson, national programme lead for RSV at the UK Health Security Agency, stresses that getting the vaccine as early as possible will offer the greatest protection for newborns.

He said: “If you’ve got a longer interval between when the vaccine gets given and when the baby is born, then you get even better protection. Get it on time. But if you can’t, do get vaccinated all the way through the third trimester.”

From August 1, 2024, to May 2025, a total of 17,911 doses of the RSV vaccine were administered to pregnant women in Scotland, which is an uptake of 49.1 per cent.

RSV is most common during the winter months, but it can occur at any time of the year. Along with this medication, pregnant women can receive vaccines for the flu and whooping cough through the NHS.

Dr Watson adds: “I would strongly encourage any pregnant woman to discuss it with their midwife, other health professionals, and be ready to have the vaccine at their week 28 appointment, or another vaccine appointment arranged soon after that.”

In the study, which followed nearly 300,000 babies born between September 2024 and March 2025 in England, more than 4,500 babies were admitted to hospital. The vast majority of these cases were of babies whose mothers did not receive the vaccination.

The RSV vaccine can also be given to people aged 75 and over, as well as for those who live in a care home with older adults.

Fergal Mackie, 28, is the founder of Edinburgh-based Metacarpal, which has made waves in the industry for developing fully mechanical prosthetic hands.

A Scot who created a bionic hand after breaking both his wrists in a skateboarding accident has made it onto Forbes’ prestigious list of top young entrepreneurs.

Fergal Mackie, 28, is the founder of Edinburgh-based Metacarpal, which has made waves in the industry for developing fully mechanical prosthetic hands. He has now been named in the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe Science and Healthcare 2026 list.

Mackie has told how his own experience of losing the use of his hands helped shape a life-changing product.

He told BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast: “I couldn’t imagine being named on the list when I started the company six years ago and it was never something on my radar.

“The biggest shock for me was the fact that nearly half of people who use hand or upper-limb prosthetics reject them.

“Over the last 30 years, the industry has focused on robotic hands but it has not had the impact that it would have hoped for on the rejection rates. There is still a massive need that is unfulfilled.”

Mackie, who studied product design engineering at Strathclyde University, was forced to undergo several surgeries after breaking both his wrists and cutting a tendon in his thumb.

During this time he was faced with the frustration of not being able to carry out basic tasks and had to discover new ways to get things done.

He started working with his uni’s prestigious prosthetics department and spoke to amputees and people with limb differences about their experiences.

Surprisingly, the most popular device for those with limb differences is still a hook, which was invented in 1912, with many rejecting robotic hands.

The engineering graduate set up Metacarpal in 2020 in a bid to fill a gap in the market and create a prosthetic hand controlled and powered by body motion. He took on two jobs to help fund the start up, designing the first prototype from his bedroom in Glasgow using a 3D printer.

From there the design evolved and Metacarpal secured funding earlier this year, employing 12 people to successfully launch the GEM – a bionic hand which operates through a cable system connected to a harness, activated by shoulder, arm or elbow movement.

Almost 40 people have received the prosthetic since its launch and it is now selling in the UK, US and Canada.

Mackie only found out he had made the Forbes list when it was published.

He said: “I think it’s a combination of having something out there that is helping people and building a company that is raising money and employing people in Scotland that helped me get on the list.”

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“A scene will remain in place whilst enquiries are ongoing”

A woman has been left fighting for her life following an incident it Mossley this morning (April 18)

According to Greater Manchester Police, officers were called to Manchester Road following reports of a concern for welfare of a woman shortly after 9.15am. The woman has since been taken to hospital and is said to be in a life-threatening condition.

The force confirmed that there are no suspicious circumstances in relation to this incident, and a scene will remain in place whilst enquiries are ongoing.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Police said: “Officers were called to reports of a concern for welfare of a woman on Manchester Road in Mossley at around 9:16am today (Saturday 18 April 2026).

“The woman has been taken to hospital and is in a life-threatening condition. There are no suspicious circumstances in relation to this incident.