'I know how important it is to tell people you love them'

The big interview Meg Jones As England prepare for the Six Nations and World Cup, the centre juggles grief and guilt after losing her father to cancer and mother to alcoholism

- Donald McRae

"I'll just use my sleeve," Meg Jones says softly as the tears slide down her face. The England centre tries to stem the flow of pain while I scuffle around in search of a tissue in one of my pockets. It takes a while, but I finally dig out a stray sheet of kitchen towel.

Jones laughs, while still crying, as she accepts my scrunched-up offering and assurance that it is unused. She wipes her eyes and continues talking about the personal tragedies of the past year.

Jones's childhood was haunted by her mother's alcoholism and then, between August and December, both her parents died - her Welsh dad, Simon, and then her English mum, Paula.

"Mum was a deep human, but she could never articulate how she felt," Jones says in her naturally husky voice that is now thickened by grief. "She said to me towards the end: 'I need help', but she was always introverted. She had low self-esteem, but she had been such a beautiful young woman. Then, as she got older, she wasn't that beautiful any more."

That repetition of "beautiful" cracks Jones open. My little old kitchen towel is sodden with tears, but Jones nods emphatically when I ask if we should keep talking this way. "Yes, 100%," she says. "It's important to me."

The women's Six Nations begins on Saturday and, a year ago, Jones was reeling from her father's diagnosis. "It was 24 January 2024 and we were at home. Celia, my partner, my sister, Abby, and me were about to eat sushi. My dad came home with his partner from the hospital. He said: 'I've got some shit news. I've got cancer, stage four."

Jones looks up. Her partner, Celia Quansah, was her Olympic sevens teammate at the Tokyo Games and their rugby success lit up her dad.

"He had two last aims," Jones says, "and one of them was to see me play sevens in the Paris Olympics and the other was to play snooker as long as he could. He loved Ronnie O'Sullivan."