Breast cancer survivors in Oxfordshire are hoping pop star Kylie Minogue can recover like they have after being diagnosed with the disease.

Kylie Minogue

The singer has pulled out of her headline appearance at next month's Glastonbury Festival and postponed her sell-out tour of Australia following the news.

Jeanne Chattoe, 55, of Woodstock Road, Witney, who developed breast cancer when she was 48, said: "It is all very sad because Kylie is such a high profile person and I think she is very brave to have gone public with it. It sounds as though they have caught it early, which is important.

"If women like Kylie notice any change in their breasts, not just lumps but inverse nipples, eczema or dimpling of the skin, they should get it checked.

Mrs Chattoe has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for research charity, Against Breast Cancer, (ABC) based in Abingdon after the death of her sister, Delia Winkler, from the disease in 1993, aged 41.

About 10 per cent of women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime.

Barbara Squires, 53, of Norris Close, Abingdon, realises she was lucky her cancer was discovered after she binned three routine invitations for breast scans.

She had a lumpectomy -- an operation to remove the tumour from the breast -- followed by a month of radiotherapy at Oxford's Churchill Hospital.

She said: "Don't do what I did, I was very naughty. All women should check themselves.

"Any woman who is invited for a screening should go for it.

"I wouldn't have known the cancer was there if I hadn't had the scan, and it could have spread all over my body. I don't know how fast it was growing or how ill I could have been.

"When first diagnosed I felt my world was coming to an end, but thanks to early diagnosis and treatment, I am now a breast cancer survivor."

Mrs Squires and her husband Cliff will be taking her barn owls, Mo and Marmite on the Cancer Research UK Abingdon Thames Walk on Saturday.

For details on how to join them, call 01865 716655.