‘I wonder if there’s a link between us?’: Amy Dowden emotionally discovers her great grandmother died from breast cancer in her 30s
The Strictly star made the discovery during an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
Amy Dowden has made the sad discovery that her great grandmother died from breast cancer at the age of 39.
The Strictly star was previously unaware of this information, and can be seen finding out for the first time during an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
The full episode featuring Amy airs on BBC One and iPlayer on June 2, and also sees her get to the bottom of a devastating murder of a teenage girl in her family.
When she turns to finding out more about her great grandmother, Louisa Dowden, and learns of her cause of death, Amy understandably becomes incredibly emotional.
Looking at Louisa's death certificate, she reads the cause of death as "carcinoma mammae." Looking up quickly, she asks, shocked, "Isn't that breast cancer?"
"Is it? It's breast cancer?" she asks again, with rising incredulity. "Oh my goodness," she adds, once it's confirmed that carcinoma mammae is breast cancer.
"Wow, at 39 years old," she says once the news sinks in, adding, "That's made me a little bit emotional," as she fights back tears.
"She was only in her 30s, I wonder if there's a link between her and me?" she asks. Amy herself was just 32-years-old when she received her own breast cancer diagnosis, in May 2023.
She underwent a mastectomy followed by chemotherapy, and went on to have a second, preventative mastectomy in November last year.
She reassured fans the second surgery wasn't to treat a new diagnosis, but was purely preventative. She is currently healthy and cancer free.
Amy then shares, "My mum had breast cancer, and witnessing her go through it, that was tough."
Speaking about her great grandmother, Amy adds, "Just the thought of their family going through what we went through, and it would've been worse then."
She then expresses sorrow for her great grandfather, for losing his wife and being left alone with their six children.
"She had one of the same types of breast cancer as me, and I'd really like to find out more," Amy continues.
"Did she get surgery? Did she get treatment? Was there a chance of a cure?" she asks.
"Knowing what she went through is horrible, but I'm lucky, I'm still here," Amy says. She later meets with a medical historian to try and get some of her questions about Louisa answered.
Agnes the historian shares that having a cancer diagnosis in 1921 would be quite similar to having one today - a patient would find a lump, visit a healthcare professional and receive a diagnosis.
"The main treatment for breast cancer at this time would have been surgery," Agnes shares, adding that this would've been the only option, as no other life saving therapies were available at this time.
"Cancer was well known to be an incurable disease," Agnes says, adding, "so she likely would have known this would be the thing she passed away from." Amy's grandfather Frank, was just a year old when Louisa passed away.
Speaking after filming for the episode finished, Amy says, "Finding out about my great-grandmother’s health was really shocking. I think it gives you an absolute appreciation for the life of today, seeing what they all went through and how hard times were."
"You’ve learnt and you know about it, but then when you're reading and seeing how it affected your own family it hits differently."
Who Do you Think You Are? airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
