Left with love, the mummy manual

By JAMES MILLS, Daily Mail

Last updated at 08:34 26 April 2005


Before Helen Harcombe's life was tragically cut short at the age of 28, she promised her little girl that she would continue to look after her from Heaven.

And she has been true to her word.

During the final months of her battle with breast cancer, Mrs Harcombe secretly prepared a detailed 'mummy manual' to help husband Antony bring up their seven-year-old daughter Ffion.

The poignant handwritten pages cover some of the finer points of motherhood and the daily routines of girls which might not occur to most fathers.

Mr Harcombe, a 31-year-old builder, is instructed how to tie Ffion's hair back for school (neat parting, no bump) and regularly to check she has not outgrown her shoes.

He must put her dinner money in an envelope each Monday and check her school bag each evening for homework and letters.

Looking ahead, a lock should be put on the bathroom door (she'll appreciate that as she gets older) and she should receive plenty of stocking fillers at Christmas (chocolates, bobbles, clips, make-up, fun stuff etc).

'Great comfort'

At his home in the Rhondda Valley, South Wales, Mr Harcombe said the 'mummy manual' was a great comfort to him.

"I feel like a much better parent with Helen to help me. Helen had always been the organised one. She dealt with the money, the accounts, the bills.

"I'm always thinking, 'How would Helen have done it? What would she want me to say?' Now I know I'm bringing up Ffion as Helen would want me to. We lost an incredible, wonderful woman."

Mrs Harcombe, a trading standards officer, was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2002 and underwent a mastectomy. But last summer the disease was found to have spread to her liver and she was given six months to live.

She broke the news to Ffion by telling her: "I'm going to Heaven." Ffion replied: "How will you look after me, Mummy?" Her mother then promised her: "Don't worry. I'm going to Heaven and I will look after you from there."

It was then that Mrs Harcombe had the idea of writing the manual.

Her husband, who had been with her for ten years, knew nothing about it until it was handed to him by his in-laws following his wife's death three days after Christmas.

Mr Harcombe said that when he showed the manual to Ffion she told him: "That makes me feel a lot better, Daddy."

'Coping well'

He added: "Ffion's coping well. We talk about her mum all the time and we go up to put flowers on her grave together. We miss her terribly but in this way she is still with us. It is a difficult time but whenever Ffion and I read it we know she's still here helping us from Heaven.

"Helen was extremely brave throughout her illness and all the treatment. She was determined to stay positive and did all she could to prepare us for life after she has gone."

Mrs Harcombe's final instruction is for her husband to stay in touch with her parents, friends and their daughter's godparents, to which she adds: "Or I'll haunt you!"

Her husband said: "That last point made me laugh - it was so typical of Helen."

He remains bitter, however, about the delay in diagnosing his wife's disease. It was not spotted until nine months after she first felt a lump in her breast because she was told there was only a low risk of cancer since she was young and healthy. Doctors agreed to a mammogram only when she insisted.

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