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I was lying in bed reading when my eyes were drawn to a small mole at the back of my left calf. Something didn’t look right, even though it wasn’t large.

I had never noticed this mole before. Looking closely, there was a black splodge inside it, as if a tiny amount of black ink had been dropped in a brown spot.

This was ten years ago, when at 45, I was busy embracing my midlife years. With more than a dozen bestselling novels to my name, I was married for the second time with four children aged between 11 and 14, and two stepchildren at home. Then I saw a doctor and her diagnosis of malignant melanoma changed everything.

Last week, the Duchess of York, 64, expressed her shock at being diagnosed with the same thing, and I understand how much she is reeling.

The Duchess’s cancerous mole was discovered while she was undergoing reconstructive surgery following breast cancer. But I believe I might not have found mine had a friend not given me some CDs by a blues singer called Eva Cassidy.

Last week, the Duchess of York expressed her shock at being diagnosed with melanoma, and I understand how much she is reeling

Last week, the Duchess of York expressed her shock at being diagnosed with melanoma, and I understand how much she is reeling

Like most of us over the age of 50, my odds of getting skin cancer were not helped by my childhood, writes JANE GREEN

Like most of us over the age of 50, my odds of getting skin cancer were not helped by my childhood, writes JANE GREEN

I was astonished I had never heard of this woman with the voice of an angel. I soon discovered her sad story. Eva Cassidy had a mole removed on her back at the age of 30. It was a melanoma, but, she was told, melanoma in situ, which means it had not spread.

Three years later she was back in hospital, this time with hip pain. They discovered that her original melanoma had metastasized and was now in her shoulder and lungs. Eva died shortly afterwards, in 1996, at the age of 33.

I was given those CDs on the very day I noticed my mole. Had my head not been full of Eva Cassidy’s story, I doubt I’d have had the sense that something was amiss with the mole on the back of my leg.

Like most of us over the age of 50, my odds of getting skin cancer were not helped by my childhood. I grew up in the age when sunny days in London were few and far between, which meant we were oblivious to the risks. On the rare occasions the sun was strong enough to tan, there would be no sun cream — in fact I used olive oil and a tin foil pillow to get a tan.

On summer holidays with my parents in places such as Spain, Portugal and France, there was little slathering up. We were of the generation where children were sent off to find a friend, and play in the swimming pool for hours, while parents relaxed with a book.

After breakfast or lunch, we weren’t allowed in the pool for an hour because of the possibility of ‘cramps’, which might lead to us drowning, or so we were told. So there we sat, my brother and I, under the full glare of the sun, with no sunscreen, counting the minutes until we could dive back into the pool. Invariably, by the end of day one, my fair skin had turned a bright scarlet, occasionally with blistering over my shoulders and back. This meant a couple of days swimming with a T-shirt on, then back to playing in the sun. Still with no sun cream.

If only we had known that even one blistering sunburn in childhood or adolescence doubles the skin cancer risks.

If only we had known that my uncle would eventually die of melanoma, and that one in ten people diagnosed have a close family member with the disease.

I remember the photographs in newspapers of Sarah Ferguson on a sun lounger, roasting her alabaster skin under a hot Mediterranean sun. I’m sure she knew as little as the rest of us.

I believe I might not have found mine had a friend not given me some CDs by a blues singer called Eva Cassidy

I believe I might not have found mine had a friend not given me some CDs by a blues singer called Eva Cassidy

I had always been frightened of cancer, but skin cancer was something I never thought about.

After finding the mole on my leg, I went to see my dermatologist, who studied it through a magnifier. Her usual light demeanour changed, and she became serious as she told me she would remove it and send it off for a biopsy.

I was on a train on the way back from a meeting in New York when she phoned. ‘It’s skin cancer,’ she said. ‘Malignant melanoma.’

I stayed calm, but the world around me slowed down. I thought I was listening, but later realised I hadn’t heard a word after she said ‘melanoma’. Melanoma is the rarest of the skin cancers, and the deadliest. Melanocytes are the cells in our skin that make a brown pigment called melanin — these are the cells that are activated when we sunbathe and tan. Melanoma happens when those melanocytes grow out of control.

Despite accounting for just one per cent of skin cancers, melanoma causes 80 pc of skin cancer deaths. And the incidence is rising — it is the fastest-growing cancer in the world. Mortality rates depend on the stage at which it’s caught — early enough, the cure rate can be 100 per cent — and there are now immunotherapy treatments that can dramatically change the outcome for people diagnosed with Stage IV, once invariably fatal.

But it is still a deadly cancer requiring real vigilance. My own melanoma was caught early, but not quite early enough. It had mitosis, meaning it was already beginning to divide and multiply and had already spread into the deep layers of skin.It meant I not only had to have a chicken-breast-sized chunk of my calf removed under general anaesthetic, leaving me with a six-inch scar, but a sentinel lymph node biopsy in the groin to check it hadn’t spread.

The waiting was interminable. First the waiting for the surgery, and then the waiting for the results. No matter how optimistic you are, how much you want to believe you will be fine, the word cancer is loaded.

While I waited, I became aware of my own mortality. The world became brighter and more beautiful. Sarah Ferguson is surrounded by her family, and I too found myself gazing at my loved ones, particularly my children, drinking them in, just in case.

There were times when I was terrified. If I found myself spiralling into a well of doom, I immediately thought of three things for which to be grateful. It helped. It kept me focused on the positive and the good.

However powerful and strong we may feel in life, cancer renders us immediately powerless. It is terrifying to be at its mercy and not know the outcome. The only choice I had was acceptance — I would take all the steps the doctors told me to take, as I prayed for the willingness to accept whatever outcome I got.

On summer holidays with my parents in places such as Spain, Portugal and France, there was little slathering up

On summer holidays with my parents in places such as Spain, Portugal and France, there was little slathering up

In the melanoma world, the ABCDE’s are crucial. Anyone who has ever been sunburnt, who has used UV sunbeds, who has a history of melanoma in the family, or who simply has a number of moles, needs to check themselves, and know what to look for:

A is for Asymmetry: One half of a mole or birthmark does not match the other.

B is for Border: The edges are irregular, ragged, notched, or blurred.

C is for Colour: The colour is not the same all over and may include different shades of brown or black, sometimes with patches of pink, red, white, or blue.

D is for Diameter: The spot is larger than 6 millimetres across (about ¼ inch — the size of a pencil eraser), although melanomas can be smaller than this.

E is for Evolving: The mole is changing in size, shape, or colour.

My surgery was successful, and I was given the all-clear after the results of the lymph node biopsy. Ten years on, I am cancer-free.

I have a full body skin check every six months, although having reached the ten-year mark, I can push that out to a year.

I don’t sunbathe any more. I do spend around 20 minutes in the sun without sun cream every day, because Vitamin D is essential, and few of us get enough, but if you see me with a suntan, I guarantee it’s out of a bottle.

Know your body, know your moles. Look for changes and use a high-factor sun cream. For a cancer that is so deadly, we all need to check our skin on a regular basis.

It’s bad luck to have been diagnosed with melanoma so soon after her breast cancer diagnosis, but the Duchess of York can take heart that it was caught early.

Let’s hope she’s back on her feet, with SPF50 and a hat, by the time the spring sunshine arrives.

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This post first appeared on Daily mail