Coronation Street star Sally Dynevor has been seen sending a potentially life-saving message to fans after facing her own cancer diagnosis more than 17 years ago.
The Middleton-born actress is famed for playing Sally Metcalfe - nee Webster - in the ITV soap, which is filmed in Salford, and she recently marked 40 years since she made her debut on the famous cobbles - despite only originally being signed up for six episodes.
Discovery during filming
But in 2009, it was a case of life imitating art when Corrie icon Sally discovered she had breast cancer at 46. At the time, she was filming her character reeling from her breast cancer diagnosis when she found a small lump in her breast and went to see a nurse at ITV to get checked.
Sally underwent treatment at The Christie, and after a six-month break, she returned to Corrie. Sally, a long-standing patron of the Manchester-based charity Prevent Breast Cancer, has since been told that her own story prompted others to get checked and she continues to campaign to encourage others to regularly check themselves.
Latest mammogram message
Over the weekend, Sally continued to spread the important message as she headed for her latest mammogram. She shared a picture as she headed for her scan at a mobile breast screening unit and said: "Mammogram day. If you receive the latter, go. [It] could save your life and takes 10 minutes [pink heart emojis]."
Earlier this year, Sally, now 62, told how she would play her character's breast cancer storyline "very differently" following her own diagnosis. The soap star, who has been in Corrie since 1986, told Prima magazine: "I think there are moments in the show that, like the breast cancer storyline, which, if I went back, I think I would have done very differently. In the sense that because I got it myself, I realised what it was like to go through breast cancer and how much you hide your pain from people you love.
"I think I didn't play it that way. I played it that Sally was very emotional and upset, and I think that now I would have gone back and played it completely differently because real-life experiences make you go, 'Ah, I shouldn't have done that, I shouldn't have done this'."
She added: "The first day when I came back after having six months off… I felt incredibly emotional and so grateful that… I'd not taken it for granted at all, but to go away and think, 'Will I ever go back?' and then to be doing what you enjoy doing, you're just so grateful for having that opportunity again."
