How appropriate that a chat with members of Carlisle Breast Care Support Group should include smiles and tears.

There have been plenty of both in the 30 years since the group was formed to help those affected by breast cancer.

Many tears in that time, of course. And smiles after successful treatment, and from camaraderie with fellow cancer sufferers who become good friends.

It all began in March 1989 when Sue Harding, the matron of Caldew Hospital on Dalston Road, realised there was a need for greater support for women diagnosed with breast cancer.

She organised a meeting. About 15 women turned up. Since then hundreds more, aged from twenties to eighties, have benefited from sharing their concerns and experiences with those who have been on a similar journey.

The founder members include Kath Brown. In August 1988, at the age of 48, Kath was diagnosed with breast cancer. She survived and she is still going strong.

“I was, naturally, devastated, as were all my family,” she recalls of her diagnosis. “I had everything to live for.”

Kath had a breast removed followed by three weeks of radiotherapy. And then?

“We all got good attention in hospital, then radiotherapy if we needed it. Then, that was it. Nothing. We were on our own.”

Carlisle Breast Care Support Group was given a room at the Cumberland Infirmary to meet and talk. “After a few months we could nearly always pair somebody up with somebody who’s gone through a similar thing.”

This is still one of the primary aims. Now the group meets at Morton Community Centre, Wigton Road, at 7pm on the last Wednesday of the month.

There are also day trips, Christmas lunches and informal meet-ups. A Facebook group has more than 50 members.

This interview takes place at Kath’s home in Rosley. She is still closely involved with the group.

Four other members have gathered here to talk, and to enjoy tea and coffee, cakes and scones.

All these ladies have had surgery: either a mastectomy or a lumpectomy, where part of the breast is removed. They have also been through chemotherapy and / or radiotherapy.

Katrin Peacock joined the group 10 years ago. “My friend had died of breast cancer two years before that, 13 weeks after she was diagnosed,” says Katrin. “That’s the first thing you think of. You think ‘That’s it. It’s death.’”

Glenda Graham has been a member for four years. She first had breast cancer in 2010.

“My mother-in-law died from it 18 months previously. My husband had gone with his mam for all her appointments. Now he was coming with me for all mine.”

Glenda had a lumpectomy on her left breast. In 2014 cancer was found in her sternum, or breastbone. She has now had two mastectomies. Tumours under each arm led to operations to remove her lymph nodes. The cancer spread to her brain.

“I’ve had brain tumours removed. I’ve got four more now. It’s not curable anymore. The brain tumours will keep coming back. I’ve just had my sternum removed in December.”

There are a few seconds of silence after Glenda speaks. Then her friends respond: “You’re absolutely marvellous.” “I’ve never seen you be ‘Poor me.’”

Glenda says that she has felt down. She sees a Hospice at Home counsellor and, once a week, visits Eden Valley Hospice day centre.

What about the breast care support group - what have they been like for her? “Great,” says Glenda. Then she fills up.

When she has composed herself, she says: “I don’t speak a lot to my mam and dad about it. It is good, having this lot around you. And Eden Valley Hospice and the counsellor.”

Katrin adds: “Sometimes it’s family and friends you don’t want to talk to.”

They agree that a breast cancer diagnosis is also painful for loved ones. Kath’s husband Bill is here, encouraging all present to have more cake.

He and Kath have been married for 61 years. “When I was diagnosed, Bill lost a stone in about a week,” says Kath.

In those days the only surgery was a mastectomy. These ladies do not necessarily think a lumpectomy is a better option.

“When I was diagnosed I had a lumpectomy,” says Glenda. “Four years later it came back. I wonder if I’d had a mastectomy whether it wouldn’t have spread.”

“I had one breast removed,” says Katrin. “I asked to have the other one off. When they took it off they found a tumour. It wasn’t showing up in scans.”

Kath says: “I wasn’t bothered [about a mastectomy]. I just wanted rid of it. Bill’s not bothered. I’ve now lived as long with Bill with one as I did with two.”

“I didn’t want to have a reconstruction,” says Glenda. “I just wear the prostheses. My husband Mark: it doesn’t bother him in the slightest.”

Katrin has had a reconstruction. “I did it for me,” she says.

Lesley Norman had a lumpectomy in 2011. “Breast cancer isn’t an illness where you look ill or feel ill,” she says.

“People will say ‘You look so well’,” adds Glenda. “It makes you feel like a fraud, that you look as well as you do.”

In the case of breast cancer, appearances are deceptive. These ladies needed strength they may not have known existed.

Kath says: “I would never have thought I had a strong personality. I don’t have a name - I’m ‘Bill Brown’s wife’!”

“You’ve got to be strong,” says Katrin. “You get yourself up or die.”

Lesley recalls: “I found a lump. My husband Mike was terrified. I was quite pragmatic.

“Mike had been through bowel cancer and liver cancer. When he was diagnosed with liver cancer we were sat down and told there was nothing more they could do. But there was a surgeon at the Freeman - to cut a long story short, I’ve still got Mike.

“I thought, he’d gone through all of that. So just get on with it. I was quite gung ho. Very positive.”

Surgery is by no means the end of the challenges. Lesley says: “The chemotherapy and radiotherapy messes with your emotions. Your hormones are in a terrible place. ‘Chemo brain’ - it’s a marvellous excuse!”

About half the people in the UK will develop cancer at some stage. Katrin says: “At first I thought ‘Why me?’ After a few days I thought ‘Why not me?’ I’m no different to anybody else.”

In the last 40 years breast cancer survival rates have doubled. Greater awareness means it is generally caught earlier. Treatments have improved - these women all praise the NHS.

Thanks to groups like theirs, people speak more openly about what used to be known as “The Big C”.

Bill says to Kath: “You found people didn’t ask how you were.”

Kath recalls: “We went to a lot of dances. We went to one in the November. I’d had the operation in September.

“They came over to Bill and asked him how I was, while I was right there. I felt like saying ‘I’ve had my breast off, not my brain!’”

Glenda adds: “Back then it was a no no. Now it’s talked about all the time. It’s more out there.”

The monthly meetings are part of this process. Lesley says: “We say to people ‘You don’t need to come alone.’ You can bring a family member or a friend.

“If they’ve got a similar diagnosis to someone else who’s been through it, we try and marry them up so they can share their concerns.”

They try to keep the mood upbeat but there are times when this is difficult, such as the first meeting after the

death of a longstanding member.

Kath says that she still misses her fellow founder member Margaret Keogh, who died in 2013.

“We lose an awful lot less now because treatment is so much better. We lost three in one day once.”

This prompts another few seconds of silence. It seems that those who are still here take nothing for granted.

Lesley says: “I am still on medication so the niggling worry is always at the back of your mind.

“All sorts of percentages are given to you about the chances of it returning, which can be worrying if you let it. But I’m extremely upbeat and always look on the bright side.”

For three decades women brought together in painful circumstances have been helping each other to do the same.

Kath Brown is pleasantly surprised to still be part of this family. “I never thought I’d be here to see 30 years,” she says. “I can’t believe it.”

n Carlisle Breast Care Support Group will be fundraising when Frankie Valli tribute act Big Guys Don’t Cry perform at the Sands Centre on Saturday April 13. All money collected will go to local causes connected with cancer.

Over the years the group has donated money and equipment, including a bed for aromatherapy massages for Cumberland Infirmary cancer patients.

To contact the group call Lesley on 01228 560311 or Sandra on 01228 549813.