To be fair to her, she had already had a few operations to remove bad cells. She even had a abnormal smear when she was 16 before she was sexually active.
Who knows the real truth of what was said and done
I remember going to hospital for breast lumps when I was 24 and the consultant said to be in a very sarcastic and nasty manner "You have lumpy breasts, get used to it" Never been back to have any lumps examined since. Lucky for me they all vanished over time.
That can be a problem. Jade said she felt something was wrong but was not taken seriously. She had had abnormal smears and was told it was nothing. That might have been why she ignored this letter because she thought it would be more of the same.
Not actual cancer. Someone missed something before it got to that stage because it was already advanced.
That can be a problem. Jade said she felt something was wrong but was not taken seriously. She had had abnormal smears and was told it was nothing. That might have been why she ignored this letter because she thought it would be more of the same.
Not actual cancer. Someone missed something before it got to that stage because it was already advanced.
What has a thread about Peaches Geldof got to do with Jade Goody???
They didn't sleep in the same bed. As part of the attachement parenting method she employed, they "co-slept" - she would sleep in one bed with one child, and he would sleep in another with the other.
Reading that I wonder exactly how often she was using being alone with Phaedra as an excuse for drug taking. Making the excuse that they couldn't sleep in the same room and sending Tom off with Astala then shooting up or necking morphine on her own with Phaedra. I wonder if the 'crying' excuse meant Tom was out of earshot and couldn't hear if Phaedra was left crying while she was out of it.
Poor Phaedra. And poor Tom. It would be devastating to lose your wife but even more devastating to find out they had been living a lie, deceiving you and using your own child in order to do that not to mention putting your children at severe risk. God help her, if she was using and sleeping in the same bed as Phaedra she's lucky it's her death we're reading about not his.
I don't think it's at all fair to use the term 'dragged up'....for a start, Jade was a loving mother. And the boys had a father who would have been there for them - he and Jade shared the upbringing of the children.
Yes a father who she was constantly slagging off and berating in the press. I remember her having a go at him in the press for not agreeing to pay for their private schooling because he couldn't afford it and he had not agreed with the choice to send them there.
It's interesting because we now know if she'd lived she would have been made bankrupt because she had spent all her money and not paid any tax at all. The boys would have had to be removed from school, so presumably she was complaining about Jeff because he wouldn't pay something she couldn't pay anymore because she'd pissed her money up the wall.
If she'd lived the children would have been made homeless along with her as her house would have been repossessed, they would have to have left school. Not to mention the fact she had a violent criminal flitting in and out of their lives in the form of Jack Tweed. Not to mention parading them in front of the camera for cash including in her final weeks when they must have been incredibly frightened and confused. And all that crap about 'I'm working to leave my children a fortune'. She knew full well that she was just working to make sure they didn't inherit her massive debts.
For some reason I laboured under the misapprehension that being a good parent involved giving your child a secure, stable childhood.
Thank you Digital Spy for opening my eyes to the fact that it should instead involve a few photo shoots for OK! and the odd soundbite. Sod what you do behind closed doors or the fact you'd rather spend your money on a boob job and hair extensions than making sure your children have a roof over their head.
Excellent. Deborah Orr is always worth reading imo, unlike just about everyone else who has written a think-piece. Having been away during the actual incident, I hardly dared to have a look at the press coverage in case Julie Burchill or some other horror had stuck an oar in.
Someone close to me lost their mother at an early age. They have never had the time to wallow - needing to earn a living & get on with life......
Peaches was 11 when her mother died - surely a wee bit young to have to earn a living. She claims that her father told her her mother was dead, then that she must get ready for school as normal. Not much 'wallowing' at all. Perhaps if she had been given time and respect to grieve at the time she would have come to terms with it better later.
My contempt is reserved for the dealers, who are the scum of the earth!>:(
'Dealer' is a bit of a trigger word. Sometimes they are scum, sometimes they are in pretty desperate straits and the throes of heavy addiction themselves, sometimes they are friends whose turn it is to get the stuff they all use. I remember Paul Betts (Leah Betts' father) saying how his understanding of the word 'dealer' had changed once he started working with drug information agencies.
Re Jade: I saw a clip of her crying in her bathroom during the Max Clifford stuff yesterday and I felt really sorry for her. She was treated like dirt by a lot of people. It was very unfair. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. But sometimes people's mistakes seem to result in them becoming no better than the dirt under peoples shoes and it's horrible.
I always felt with Jade that as an adult she was surrounded by people who were doing well out of her financially; she was so poorly parented that a sharky collection of agents, managers and media advisors became her default parents, and she did whatever they told her she should. There was something poignant and rather touching in Jade's last few months about how off message she would go in interviews, flatly contadicting some lie that Max Clifford had placed in the press because for all her faults, smooth lying did not come naturally to her.
I wonder if now the police have revealed they did find gear , they may later admit they found a note ? there may yet be more news to come ,especially around if her husband knew she was using .
Reading that I wonder exactly how often she was using being alone with Phaedra as an excuse for drug taking. Making the excuse that they couldn't sleep in the same room and sending Tom off with Astala then shooting up or necking morphine on her own with Phaedra. I wonder if the 'crying' excuse meant Tom was out of earshot and couldn't hear if Phaedra was left crying while she was out of it.
Poor Phaedra. And poor Tom. It would be devastating to lose your wife but even more devastating to find out they had been living a lie, deceiving you and using your own child in order to do that not to mention putting your children at severe risk. God help her, if she was using and sleeping in the same bed as Phaedra she's lucky it's her death we're reading about not his.
I wonder if now the police have revealed they did find gear , they may later admit they found a note ? there may yet be more news to come ,especially around if her husband knew she was using .
I am absolutely convinced he didn't. Firstly she apparently told people that she wasn't. But the fact that she was prepared to use on her own with Phaedra makes me certain that he didn't. If he'd known she would have been able to tell him she was going to take the drug and organise that the children would be out of the way.
I wonder if perhaps he knew she'd struggled in the past and the reason why she did it while she was alone with Phaedra was so he wouldn't suspect that she was using. If she had made excuses to be completely alone he might have guessed, but presumably if she was with Phaedra he wasn't suspicious.
I mean, the fact that she was using while he was out of the way but the baby was there smacks of deviousness and irresponsibility.
I know it sounds harsh, but I hate the way when things like this happen some people rush to canonize the person and feel sorry for them. When it's people like Winehouse, stuff like that, I feel all the sympathy in the world. But when children are involved I think it's time to stop sympathising with them and say how terrible their actions are.
People shouldn't feel it's okay to put your children at risk like this if you've had a bad childhood or you're depressed or you're whatever kind of victim. Once you have children of your own that stops and you have to take responsibility for them and yourself. And I say that as someone who has struggled with addiction problems in the past and now have children of my own. (Although it was not heroin).
I know it sounds harsh, but I hate the way when things like this happen some people rush to canonize the person and feel sorry for them. .
There is all the difference in the world between 'canonizing' someone (by which I assume you mean, expressing extravagant admiration for them) and feeling sorry for them. In my opinion, there was not an awful lot for a detached observer to admire about her life, other than that she does seem to have had genuine ideals. I was outraged when she kept on and on getting high profile media work over the heads of vast numbers of better candidates for no other reason than her father's name (and money). But that makes no difference to feeling sorry for her. Of course I feel sorry for her: do you imagine for a second that she had two babies intending to leave them orphaned, and to be known throughout the country as just another (probably) junkie death?
People have rightly said that a drug addicted mother who dies in a council flat would receive a far less sympathetic treatment in the press, and by readers. Yes, we should not feel extra, extra sorry for Peaches because she was rich, pretty and famous, of course we shouldn't. But we do not have a lifetimes supply of sympathy that will quickly run out if we waste it. Any mother who loves her children but fails to defeat her drugs habit before it kills her deserves pity.
I do realize this thread sometimes sounds like a 'my drugs experiences are more real than yours' competition, but as someone who spent some years living with a heroin addict, I would say that the craving for the drug really does appear to be stronger than anything; stronger than fear, stronger than ordinary decency, stronger than self-preservation, much. Someone with a close and loving family will break them, nearly die, be rescued with infinite love and patience, then do exactly the same again.
If Peaches had lived, and got out of the drugs habit, she might have gone right on writing tiresome and self-promotional articles in the glossy magazines until the end of time. People would have had a little moan about them from time to time. She might perhaps occasionally look back at her mid-20's and reflect what a tough time they had been, and how nearly she had lost everything. I wish it had turned out like that.
There is also an extra sadness around this, because she didn't seem to be in touch with her dad, and he didn't see his grandchildren much.
That would affect any of us. Think about it. Your mum is dead and your dad is not in contact.
Everything about how her life ended is awful.
The sadness and desperation to take the final hit (she could have taken it at 5.00 am in the morning after putting her boy to bed, nobody knows) I can't imagine the pain she was in.
I agree. There will always be people who will love to trash Jade. Nasty, spineless little people with small minds. She was a good mum and they cannot stand it.
You really are very over-invested in zelebrity culture "Susie". Think you might need to get out a bit more, dear.
Peaches was 11 when her mother died - surely a wee bit young to have to earn a living. She claims that her father told her her mother was dead, then that she must get ready for school as normal. Not much 'wallowing' at all. Perhaps if she had been given time and respect to grieve at the time she would have come to terms with it better.
I, obviously, didn't mean at the age of 11 !
I was comparing the scenario - not unkindly - with my husband who lost his mother when he was 12 years old & in comparison - their later lives....
Peaches, due to her father, was financially affluent & had more brooding time.
Who knows what goes on behind closed doors - I am sure Bob Geldof thought, at the time, that he was doing the best for his daughters.
There are three other daughters - they all lost their mother. The youngest was with her, aged 4, when she died.
I see the DM are touting a story about her visiting methadone clinics. I don't buy it for a second, if (as they say) she was trying to position herself as an 'Earth Mother' then why would she go to a clinic frequented by the public rather than pick it up from a doctor? And when I say "the public" I mean people that are addicted to an expensive substance that requires a lot of money to maintain, money that could be gotten from selling stories to newspapers? The thing about these dubious sources is that as it involved medical history no-one can ever confirm or deny it.
And the supposed "family friend" Gerry McWhatsit giving quotes away like smiles. Bet he's not a friend anymore, what a scumbag
There is also an extra sadness around this, because she didn't seem to be in touch with her dad, and he didn't see his grandchildren much.
That would affect any of us. Think about it. Your mum is dead and your dad is not in contact.
Everything about how her life ended is awful.
The sadness and desperation to take the final hit (she could have taken it at 5.00 am in the morning after putting her boy to bed, nobody knows) I can't imagine the pain she was in.
Not to be heartless but there are a tremendous amount of people who grow up not knowing who their father is even and their mother's are alcoholic's , drug abusers , dead , out of contact etc and they don't go reaching for heroin .Off the top of my head - Christopher Reeve fell off his horse , was wheelchair bound , then died .Then his wife died .Their children didn't go off the rails. My ex had no idea who his father was , had no father figure and his mother left him to social services .No heroin was involved to dispel his "demons" .A hell of a lot of people lose parents young , a lot of people have abusive parents - Peaches was an adult with responsibilities of her own .You can't keep blaming your past for everything for evermore .
Not to be heartless but there are a tremendous amount of people who grow up not knowing who their father is even and their mother's are alcoholic's , drug abusers , dead , out of contact etc and they don't go reaching for heroin .Off the top of my head - Christopher Reeve fell off his horse , was wheelchair bound , then died .Then his wife died .Their children didn't go off the rails. My ex had no idea who his father was , had no father figure and his mother left him to social services .No heroin was involved to dispel his "demons" .A hell of a lot of people lose parents young , a lot of people have abusive parents - Peaches was an adult with responsibilities of her own .You can't keep blaming your past for everything for evermore .
We are all different though some people can deal with grief and emotional problems better than others.
I can't help but wonder if the marriage had hit trouble. All this talk that Tom was at his parents with the kids for 4 days, which was apparently common due to their work. By all accounts Tom didn't work and was Peaches really that busy with work to need a 4 day break? I look at that picture of Tom and Peaches on the mower with the kids and only the children look happy, maybe it was meant to be an arty shot and appear that way I'm not sure.
We are all different though some people can deal with grief and emotional problems better than others.
Yes I agree .It's a real shame she didn't seek out the right help ( old nanny ? parents - in -law ? sisters ? drugs agencies ? ) confide in someone that she wasn't coping .Then again , sometimes even with the right help , some people reach a point of no return
I can't help but wonder if the marriage had hit trouble. All this talk that Tom was at his parents with the kids for 4 days, which was apparently common due to their work. By all accounts Tom didn't work and was Peaches really that busy with work to need a 4 day break? I look at that picture of Tom and Peaches on the mower with the kids and only the children look happy, maybe it was meant to be an arty shot and appear that way I'm not sure.
I just had a look through some photos on a link up-thread and it struck me how very different from the rest of the family Pixie looks. She's nothing like Bob or Paula. Did I miss something, does she have a different father from Fifi and Peaches?
Comments
That can be a problem. Jade said she felt something was wrong but was not taken seriously. She had had abnormal smears and was told it was nothing. That might have been why she ignored this letter because she thought it would be more of the same.
Not actual cancer. Someone missed something before it got to that stage because it was already advanced.
What has a thread about Peaches Geldof got to do with Jade Goody???
Threads move on or evolve, or take small twist and turns. Most threads would die after more than a few pages if this didn't happen.
Reading that I wonder exactly how often she was using being alone with Phaedra as an excuse for drug taking. Making the excuse that they couldn't sleep in the same room and sending Tom off with Astala then shooting up or necking morphine on her own with Phaedra. I wonder if the 'crying' excuse meant Tom was out of earshot and couldn't hear if Phaedra was left crying while she was out of it.
Poor Phaedra. And poor Tom. It would be devastating to lose your wife but even more devastating to find out they had been living a lie, deceiving you and using your own child in order to do that not to mention putting your children at severe risk. God help her, if she was using and sleeping in the same bed as Phaedra she's lucky it's her death we're reading about not his.
While we appreciate discussion can move on, please try to stay on-topic and related to Peaches Geldof.
Thanks
Yes a father who she was constantly slagging off and berating in the press. I remember her having a go at him in the press for not agreeing to pay for their private schooling because he couldn't afford it and he had not agreed with the choice to send them there.
It's interesting because we now know if she'd lived she would have been made bankrupt because she had spent all her money and not paid any tax at all. The boys would have had to be removed from school, so presumably she was complaining about Jeff because he wouldn't pay something she couldn't pay anymore because she'd pissed her money up the wall.
If she'd lived the children would have been made homeless along with her as her house would have been repossessed, they would have to have left school. Not to mention the fact she had a violent criminal flitting in and out of their lives in the form of Jack Tweed. Not to mention parading them in front of the camera for cash including in her final weeks when they must have been incredibly frightened and confused. And all that crap about 'I'm working to leave my children a fortune'. She knew full well that she was just working to make sure they didn't inherit her massive debts.
For some reason I laboured under the misapprehension that being a good parent involved giving your child a secure, stable childhood.
Thank you Digital Spy for opening my eyes to the fact that it should instead involve a few photo shoots for OK! and the odd soundbite. Sod what you do behind closed doors or the fact you'd rather spend your money on a boob job and hair extensions than making sure your children have a roof over their head.
Sorry! Hadn't seen this before I replied.
'Dealer' is a bit of a trigger word. Sometimes they are scum, sometimes they are in pretty desperate straits and the throes of heavy addiction themselves, sometimes they are friends whose turn it is to get the stuff they all use. I remember Paul Betts (Leah Betts' father) saying how his understanding of the word 'dealer' had changed once he started working with drug information agencies.
I always felt with Jade that as an adult she was surrounded by people who were doing well out of her financially; she was so poorly parented that a sharky collection of agents, managers and media advisors became her default parents, and she did whatever they told her she should. There was something poignant and rather touching in Jade's last few months about how off message she would go in interviews, flatly contadicting some lie that Max Clifford had placed in the press because for all her faults, smooth lying did not come naturally to her.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/motherhood-peaches-geldof-paula-yates
As for poor Peaches, my sentiments now are the same as when I heard she had died.
How very very sad for all involved.
I think your mind is overacting.
I am absolutely convinced he didn't. Firstly she apparently told people that she wasn't. But the fact that she was prepared to use on her own with Phaedra makes me certain that he didn't. If he'd known she would have been able to tell him she was going to take the drug and organise that the children would be out of the way.
I wonder if perhaps he knew she'd struggled in the past and the reason why she did it while she was alone with Phaedra was so he wouldn't suspect that she was using. If she had made excuses to be completely alone he might have guessed, but presumably if she was with Phaedra he wasn't suspicious.
I mean, the fact that she was using while he was out of the way but the baby was there smacks of deviousness and irresponsibility.
I know it sounds harsh, but I hate the way when things like this happen some people rush to canonize the person and feel sorry for them. When it's people like Winehouse, stuff like that, I feel all the sympathy in the world. But when children are involved I think it's time to stop sympathising with them and say how terrible their actions are.
People shouldn't feel it's okay to put your children at risk like this if you've had a bad childhood or you're depressed or you're whatever kind of victim. Once you have children of your own that stops and you have to take responsibility for them and yourself. And I say that as someone who has struggled with addiction problems in the past and now have children of my own. (Although it was not heroin).
There is all the difference in the world between 'canonizing' someone (by which I assume you mean, expressing extravagant admiration for them) and feeling sorry for them. In my opinion, there was not an awful lot for a detached observer to admire about her life, other than that she does seem to have had genuine ideals. I was outraged when she kept on and on getting high profile media work over the heads of vast numbers of better candidates for no other reason than her father's name (and money). But that makes no difference to feeling sorry for her. Of course I feel sorry for her: do you imagine for a second that she had two babies intending to leave them orphaned, and to be known throughout the country as just another (probably) junkie death?
People have rightly said that a drug addicted mother who dies in a council flat would receive a far less sympathetic treatment in the press, and by readers. Yes, we should not feel extra, extra sorry for Peaches because she was rich, pretty and famous, of course we shouldn't. But we do not have a lifetimes supply of sympathy that will quickly run out if we waste it. Any mother who loves her children but fails to defeat her drugs habit before it kills her deserves pity.
I do realize this thread sometimes sounds like a 'my drugs experiences are more real than yours' competition, but as someone who spent some years living with a heroin addict, I would say that the craving for the drug really does appear to be stronger than anything; stronger than fear, stronger than ordinary decency, stronger than self-preservation, much. Someone with a close and loving family will break them, nearly die, be rescued with infinite love and patience, then do exactly the same again.
If Peaches had lived, and got out of the drugs habit, she might have gone right on writing tiresome and self-promotional articles in the glossy magazines until the end of time. People would have had a little moan about them from time to time. She might perhaps occasionally look back at her mid-20's and reflect what a tough time they had been, and how nearly she had lost everything. I wish it had turned out like that.
That would affect any of us. Think about it. Your mum is dead and your dad is not in contact.
Everything about how her life ended is awful.
The sadness and desperation to take the final hit (she could have taken it at 5.00 am in the morning after putting her boy to bed, nobody knows) I can't imagine the pain she was in.
You really are very over-invested in zelebrity culture "Susie". Think you might need to get out a bit more, dear.
I was comparing the scenario - not unkindly - with my husband who lost his mother when he was 12 years old & in comparison - their later lives....
Peaches, due to her father, was financially affluent & had more brooding time.
Who knows what goes on behind closed doors - I am sure Bob Geldof thought, at the time, that he was doing the best for his daughters.
There are three other daughters - they all lost their mother. The youngest was with her, aged 4, when she died.
And the supposed "family friend" Gerry McWhatsit giving quotes away like smiles. Bet he's not a friend anymore, what a scumbag
Not to be heartless but there are a tremendous amount of people who grow up not knowing who their father is even and their mother's are alcoholic's , drug abusers , dead , out of contact etc and they don't go reaching for heroin .Off the top of my head - Christopher Reeve fell off his horse , was wheelchair bound , then died .Then his wife died .Their children didn't go off the rails. My ex had no idea who his father was , had no father figure and his mother left him to social services .No heroin was involved to dispel his "demons" .A hell of a lot of people lose parents young , a lot of people have abusive parents - Peaches was an adult with responsibilities of her own .You can't keep blaming your past for everything for evermore .
We are all different though some people can deal with grief and emotional problems better than others.
Yes I agree .It's a real shame she didn't seek out the right help ( old nanny ? parents - in -law ? sisters ? drugs agencies ? ) confide in someone that she wasn't coping .Then again , sometimes even with the right help , some people reach a point of no return
I've wondered about this myself