In a traumatic meeting in June 1993 she was finally told the truth . The breast cancer had own spread to her liver - that was the pain and her bones . This prognosis was delivered in a Scottish surgery in the town of Dumfries near where we lives . We went in to see the oncologist who regularly came from Edinburgh ,a pleasant doctor who , like those in the NHS ,was hard working and with little spare time on his hands. She later recounted the experience in a home movie nade for her mother ,and wry irony sums up situation that was to recur . It crystallized our thought