Hannah was only 39

Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha appeared visibly emotional over her friend Hannah’s heartbreaking death as she discussed the funeral today (January 22).

Towards the end of December, Nadia revealed her close friend, Hannah Gardner, had passed away at 39 years old. Nadia had been open about Hannah’s fight with incurable breast cancer for a while, and always wanted to share her message to the world.

Today on Loose women, Nadia revealed it was Hannah’s funeral yesterday (January 21). And she got visibly emotional as she wanted to spread her message around.

Nadia Sawalha emotional over Hannah’s funeral

Speaking about the funeral to her fellow Loose Women panellists, Nadia said: “Everybody did such a good job at making it one of the most beautiful days ever. Almost 200 people. She would have loved it. It really was so special. We had a fantastic wake afterwards.

“It’s always difficult and heartbreaking when you think of Hannah being so young. And she has such a young child, Lyla is five. And as non-verbal and autistic, it was very moving. But my goodness, she was loved.”

Nadia revealed one of the most emotional parts of the funeral was that there was a drop-box, where everyone could put photos of them with Hannah, so that there could be a fifteen-minute video of all the photos.

As Nadia began getting more emotional, her co-star Jane asked: “It must have been a nice reminder of how she was before everything?”

Nadia replied: “Yeah. Because I had all the memories of how she was in the hospice. So, it was really, really special. Her best friend, Sarah, did a lovely eulogy. In it she quoted something Hannah had said. We were all at her last birthday – she knew it was her last one. We asked her what her wish would be, and she said her wish would be for Lyla.”

Nadia shares Hannah’s final hopes

The show proceeded to play the video of Hannah speaking about her daughter, and after, Nadia got emotional as she asked the public to be “kind”.

The Loose Women star emotionally added: “She was always campaigning for children with additional needs or other women with breast cancer. She lived her life under extraordinarily difficult circumstances very well.”

Another person Nadia was happy to meet at Hannah’s funeral, was one of the nurses who was actually there when her friend was first diagnosed at 26.

Charlene added that it’s “lovely” to hear just how many people turned up to support her and be there for her.

Nadia agreed, adding that she knows Hannah would be “thrilled” that her message is being spoken about on such a public scale.

She said: “That’s all she wanted. Please be kind to these children with additional needs. Be patient. Just take a moment. That was it.”