TV Actress Bellingham May Have Months To Live

Lynda Bellingham, the actress best known for playing a mum in the Oxo TV adverts, plans to end life-extending chemotherapy treatment, allowing her to die.

The 66-year-old star, who has colon cancer that has spread to her lungs and liver, says she wants to spend one more Christmas with her family before she passes away.

She is set to stop having chemo around November and believes she may lose her life by the end of January.

In her new autobiography, Bellingham, who was diagnosed in July last year, said how she revealed her plans to doctors.

In excerpts printed in a newspaper, she said: "August 13, 2014. Yesterday was the glorious 12th - a day for us to remember because it is also the day I decided when I will die. I am very dramatic aren't I?

"I know it is not ultimately my decision, but it is my last vestige of control to sit in front of the oncologist and say when I would like to stop having chemo and let the natural way do its thing.

"I sat down with (husband) Michael and Professor Stebbing and announced: 'The time has come to cease and desist.

"'I would love to make one more Christmas, if possible, but I want to stop taking chemo around November in order to pass away by the end of January'."

Earlier this year, the regular Loose Women panellist, whose sister Barbara died from lung cancer, picked up an OBE from Buckingham Palace in recognition for a career that has spanned 40 years.

Highlights included the TV series All Creatures Great And Small, competing in Strictly Come Dancing and starring in the touring stage production of Calendar Girls.

Her starring role as the mother in a squabbling family in the long-running Oxo TV adverts was first screened in the 1980s.