It's been hardest on the kids... they go to therapy & draw to get it all out

Actress Heather Peace on her and her wife's cancer diagnosis

- BY ASHLEIGH RAINBIRD

While on-screen in EastEnders her character Eve Panesar-Unwin breaks boundaries by adopting a child with her wife Suki, off-screen actress Heather Peace and her wife Ellie Dickinson have both spent the past year battling breast cancer.

The unimaginable diagnoses of both parents has understandably taken its toll on the couple's three children.

Annie, 11, and nine-year-old twins Jessie and Lola have had psychotherapy to help process their mums' illnesses.

Heather, 51, said: "It's been hardest on the kids. They've had a few sessions of art therapy where they go and they draw and they get it out.

"We just said to them, 'this is your chance to say all of your darkest things that perhaps you couldn't say to me and Mum. Let it all out'."

In 2024, Ellie, who is slightly younger than Heather, discovered a small, aggressive lump and had a lumpectomy, followed by radiotherapy.

Two months later, in October, Heather noticed a change in her nipple.

She was diagnosed with cancer within three hours of an appointment at the breast cancer centre in Worthing, West Sussex, where doctors discovered a huge 12cm tumour.

While it hit her like a "sledgehammer", the couple credit their dark senses of humour with helping them deal with their devastating diagnoses.

"We have quite a sick joke," laughed Heather. "Because Ellie's was quite a small lump, and she had a lumpectomy, and she had radiotherapy. And then two months after she got the all clear, I came with my 12-centimetre lump, mastectomy, chemotherapy.