Chris Rea, 74, passed away after having his pancreas removed during a cancer battle at the age of 74. His songs included the festive hit Driving Home For Christmas.
Chris Rea became the third of his siblings to die within just three months, it has emerged.
The singer’s family expressed their “awful pain” at the third recent tragedy following the star’s death this week. Chris’ older sister Camille Whitaker, 79, said the youngest of her six siblings, Nicholas, passed away in a Yorkshire hospital in October from brain cancer at the age of 66. Then, just days after his funeral, Camille’s twin sister Geraldine Milward died suddenly.
And Chris, who was from Teesside’s Middlesbrough, passed away this week following the birth of his first grandchild. Camille stated in a statement from last night that it was “a terrible pain.” What transpired is absolutely devastating. It shocked the family a lot. It is tragic. We are unable to “get around” it.
Chris, whose songs include the festive favourite Driving Home For Christmas, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had his pancreas removed in 2001, and in 2016 he suffered a stroke.
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Chris, one of seven siblings, was able to experience the joyous news of the birth of a grandson recently. The musician, who wrote Driving Home For Christmas after travelling from London to Middlesbrough for the festive period in 1978, remained close to his family throughout his life, it is said.
Talking to the Daily Mail, Camille continued: “He lived with his wife and children in Buckinghamshire. He always kept very close to his family. He has two daughters and he recently became a grandfather, to a boy, he was very, very pleased. That was wonderful. His eldest, Josephine, inspired one of his songs.
And Julia, his second daughter, is the woman who wed and gave birth. Christopher was in terrible, terrible health before he passed away.
Indeed, the father had his pancreas removed in 2001 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he also experienced a stroke in 2016. Following Chris’ success in the late 1970s and 1980s with hits like Fool (If You Think It’s Over), Let’s Dance, and The Road To Hell, these health issues emerged. Approximately ten years after Chris’ idea for driving home for Christmas, it only peaked at number 53 on the charts, being beaten by Mistletoe and Wine by Cliff Richard, who had earlier released the film.
However, it has resurrended in the decades since and has since appeared in the UK Singles Chart every year since 2007 in part as a result of the streaming services.
Six days before his passing, Camille last spoke with her brother on the phone. Camille described the singer as a “very shy and quiet man” and claimed that they and their other siblings had a modest upbringing in Middlesbrough.
Their father, an Italian who immigrated to the UK, worked in a town’s ice cream factory and café chain. Chris initially pursued a career in journalism, but he discovered his calling in music and, by the late 1970s, had released music professionally.
Source: Mirror
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