Zoe Ball caring for the cancer-stricken mum who walked out on her

When presenter Zoe Ball‘s mom was identified with most cancers, she did what any loving daughter would do — labored out how she might restructure her personal life to supply assist.

In her case, that concerned telling the bosses of her Radio 2 breakfast present that there could be occasions the place she must hand over the reins to another person.

She then knowledgeable her followers on Instagram that her household was dealing with ‘powerful occasions’, praising her ‘courageous’ mom Julia, who’s going by means of chemo, and thanking Gaby Roslin for agreeing to step in.

‘I’m making an attempt to be at work on breakfast as typically as I can however often should be at house with my Mama. Thanks to Gaby for stepping in,’ she wrote.

Those whose relations have been by means of critical sickness will perceive her agony. However necessary (or public) the profession, household will at all times come first. Zoe and her mum appear notably shut, having fun with holidays collectively, and when Zoe’s kids Woody, 24, and Nelly, 14, had been youthful, she helped with childcare.

When presenter Zoe Ball ‘s mom was identified with most cancers , she did what any loving daughter would do — labored out how she might restructure her personal life to supply assist. Pictured right here along with her mom, Julia, in 2010

Julia solely got here again into Zoe life when she was coming into maturity

Physically, they share similarities too. Both have tall, rangy frames, elfin options and excessive cheekbones. While Julia by no means had the profile her well-known daughter now has, she does know a bit of about being within the public eye. In the late 60s, a life-sized cardboard cut-out of her was to be present in chemist retailers, due to a modelling contract with Kodak.

Zoe and her mum weren’t at all times shut, nonetheless. And a cardboard model of her mum, ought to any have nonetheless been on present within the early 70s, would have been the closest the younger Zoe bought to see her.

For 14 years they had been estranged, which makes Zoe’s sacrifice now all of the extra noteworthy. Zoe was simply two when Julia, then 21, walked out on the household, leaving her dad, the youngsters’s TV presenter Johnny Ball, to carry up their daughter.

From the age of 5 till her late teenagers, Zoe did not see her mum. Even when sufficiently old to make the choice for herself, she declined to let her mum into her life.

‘I had at all times been an entire Daddy’s lady, so there was no query who I’d stick with,’ she as soon as mentioned in an interview, explaining that when her father remarried (when Zoe was six) his new spouse Di introduced Zoe up as her personal. Two half-brothers adopted.

‘Dad was at all times actually cool about me seeing Mum if I wished to,’ she mentioned. ‘But though she despatched birthday playing cards and presents, I by no means responded. Mum was round, and I knew she was there. But she had her life, and I had mine.’

Zoe has at all times mentioned that she had a blissfully pleased childhood. She refers to Di as ‘Mumly’, and has at all times credited her with being there for her.

Zoe and her mom arriving at The Dorchester Hotel, London, Britain Aug 2, 2011 for her birthday celebrations

Her true mom got here again into her life when she was coming into maturity. The rapprochement got here when Julia married for the third time. Her new husband, Rick, invited Zoe to Julia’s fortieth birthday celebration. ‘Your mum would like to see you,’ he mentioned.

Zoe agreed. But on the day of the get together, she was so nervous she nearly modified her thoughts. ‘I might hardly breathe,’ she recalled in an interview with the Mirror in 1997. ‘I felt faint however by some means managed to carry myself collectively.’ She wasn’t even positive which home belonged to her mum, however ‘I spied some balloons tied to a gate and my coronary heart began pounding like mad. I immediately panicked: ‘What if we hate one another?’.’

It was her mum who answered the door — and all hesitation was gone. ‘Mum hadn’t modified a bit, besides she did not appear fairly so tall,’ Zoe recalled. The pair fell into one another’s arms. ‘We spent such a stunning first day collectively . . . a number of crying and girlie emotion.’

In the approaching years, they’d see one another on a regular basis. Zoe as soon as famous that if she wanted any clarification of what she was doing, career-wise, she might seek the advice of her mum’s cuttings assortment. Obviously proud, Julia collected all method of articles about Zoe’s rising success.

She began to return to her mum for boyfriend recommendation too, particularly when she was contemplating whether or not to exit a relationship in her early 20s. ‘She informed me if one thing is correct or not,’ Zoe mentioned. Mind you, she additionally harboured hopes Zoe would turn into romantically concerned with fellow presenter Jamie Theakston, who lived on the identical street as Julia and Rick. Alas, she was disillusioned there.

Taking to social media, Zoe shared a photograph of her mom surrounded by relations

Zoe Ball and her DJ husband Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, introduced in 2016 that that they had ‘come to the top of our rainbow’ after 18 years of marriage

Ms Ball, 53, mentioned she could be taking time away from Radio 2 to give attention to her household

Were there lengthy heartfelt conversations about what had occurred when Zoe was only a toddler? There will need to have been as a result of in 2002 Zoe informed an interviewer for The Independent: ‘She was younger, did not need to be a mum, so legged it. I can perceive that.’

He additionally conceded that her youthful refusal to see her mum may need been right down to the concern of being disillusioned. ‘I had this fantasy about her being an excellent individual, which I do not suppose I wished to smash by assembly her. I remembered her in a suede jacket with fur trim, and suede boots, terribly glamorous.’

In 1999, Zoe’s personal life — then quite wild, she was characterised as a ‘ladette’ by newspapers — gave the impression to be settling down. She married DJ Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook, and their firstborn Woody arrived the next yr.

A tough query arose: How do you behave as a mum your self when the position mannequin has been, fairly actually, absent?

Zoe has admitted her personal path by means of motherhood has not been simple. ‘I did not like being pregnant . . . the way it affected my life-style. I did not like being fats after which, within the first few months after childbirth, I could not bear the dearth of sleep.’

She additionally suffered post-natal melancholy, and had a interval when she appeared set on bowing out of household life.

When Woody was two — the age Zoe was when her mum left — she ran off with DJ Dan Peppe. Norman mentioned on the time: ‘If you like somebody you will forgive them.’ Zoe stored involved with Woody all through, and inside three months was again house.

Her father described Zoe’s affair as ‘a cry for assist’, and she or he acknowledged sharing traits along with her mom. ‘I had a historical past of being the type of one that, the minute something went flawed in my life, would run away,’ she as soon as mentioned.

Zoe and Norman break up for good in 2016, and 7 years in the past her new companion, Billy Yates, took his personal life after a battle with melancholy. She has since weathered the breakdown of a five-and-a-half yr relationship with former development employee Michael Reed.

Her mum Julia has, by all accounts, been a rock all through. Zoe’s insistence on being there for her, now, is proof that bridges have lengthy since been mended.