Hugh Grant opens up about his mother`s cancer battle

The Bridget Jones' Diary star has donated £100,000 to help launch a new section on Healthtalkonline that presents the facts about pancreatic cancer.

Grant's mum Fynvola died from the disease in 2001 at the age of 66 and Hugh has talked about the shock of her diagnosis and how he was supported by the voluntary? sector and the NHS.

He said: 'They did more tests and the cancer had in fact spread. I remember the day I was sitting with her in the hospital and the doctors came in and said, 'It's not good,' and really she had about two or three weeks left at that point - that was pretty bleak.

'The nurses were just fantastic, whether the normal NHS nurses or the Marie Curie nurses whose entire life is spent sitting in the dark with someone who is dying. They almost earn nothing, but if I put them next to my hedge fund friends I know who is happier.'

The 50-year-old says that humour was one of the main ways he coped with the tragic news.