David Brown

Chief News Correspondent

The Times

Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:

 This is a tragic story tells us that chronic pain is really badly managed by both patients and clinicians. Without knowing the details it’s difficult to know if this poor woman’s pain really was “psychosomatic” or part of the “medically unexplained” story that seems to be very common. I have previously blogged several times on chronic pain and the approaches that we take at The Health Equation.

 Patients do not readily accept the “psychosomatic” label, they tend to say things like “but my pain is real”, being told by clinicians there is nothing wrong when you are experiencing symptoms simply is not credulous. Often causes (note the plural) can be found for patients’ pain, it tends to be complex and multifactorial. I have readily found that in many of my complex pain patients, that explaining the mechanisms behind their pain and addressing their causes, especially psychosocial and behavioural factors can make a massive difference. Compassion and care is critical in conjunction with good clinical experience to be able to develop appropriate and individualised care pathways for many of these patients.

Hannah Northedge had a successful career as a singer, musical director, talent show judge and even a lookalike of the Duchess of Cambridge.

The discovery of her body at the base of Beachy Head, a notorious suicide spot, has dismayed her showbusiness friends, who were unaware of the torment of the last three months of her life.

Her parents yesterday described how Ms Northedge, who had sung for the Queen, had become so racked with pain that she feared she would never appear on stage again because doctors could find nothing wrong with her.

They questioned whether her complaints had too readily been dismissed as “psychosomatic” and revealed that their daughter had said she hoped a post-mortem examination would finally reveal the cause of her condition.

Ms Northedge, 43, left her flat in Gypsy Hill, south London, this week. On her bed lay the dress in which she wanted to be buried, a plan for her funeral and letters for her family. Police discovered that she had spent Wednesday night at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. She was found the next morning at the cliffs three miles away.

It was a lonely death for a woman who loved being in the spotlight. She had been inspired to enter showbusiness by her mother, Susan, a professional singer in the 1960s. Hannah Northedge trained as a classical singer before specialising as a jazz performer. Talking about her work impersonating the Duchess of Cambridge, she said: “The money is great, but the reason I became a lookalike was for the parties you attend, the people you meet and the acting skills you develop.”

Her mother said yesterday that her daughter had last performed on New Year’s Day having been complaining of increasing pain. “She thought she would end in a wheelchair and she could not cope with that,” Mrs Northedge, 68, said. “She could not bear to look out of the window of the flat and people going with their lives, knowing she could not do that.”

Her daughter moved to London in 2001 and sang at venues including Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Centre and the Royal Albert Hall for two BBC Proms.

Mrs Northedge and her former husband, Raymond Northedge, 73, said the failure of doctors to diagnose a physical reason for the pain suffered by their “feisty” daughter had left her in “turmoil”. Mrs Northedge said: “She thought the doctors were not listening to her. The pain was real to her. She said, ‘I cannot take it any more’.”

Sussex police said on Thursday night that the body found at Beachy Head was believed to be Ms Northedge. Her parents spoke to The Times so friends could understand what had happened.

Ms Northedge spent ten days in hospital in February undergoing tests, which could not find a cause for her pain. “Then she went to see a psychologist who said it was a psychological condition,” her mother said. “She felt she was going to die from this disease or illness which no one could find.”