Margaret Anne Sands, known today as Annie Mulholland, was born on 3 January 1953 daughter of Bill and Gladys. Annie grew up with her brother Nick and her sister Pam in Ealing. She had a happy childhood, growing up in a busy household, which was always open to friends, family, and neighbours. The family policy was always to welcome people in and a warm welcoming atmosphere was very much part of family life. Annie attended Ashtead Primary School. Holidays were spent along south coast, horse riding, and learning to swim in the river Thames. Annie’s mischievous streak began at an early age, often encouraged by her brother Nick. Stories include Annie standing on the kitchen table to drop golden syrup into her breakfast porridge, and being rescued by search and rescue from a cliff on a family trip to the beach.

Annie went onto Dorking Grammar. By her own admission she didn’t enjoy school that much, with the exception of French. In 1964, she went on an exchange holiday, meeting her pen pal Jean Jacques. Annie fell in love with France – the people, the language, learning to ski, the food and wine. She spent three weeks with Jean Jacques and his family in Valence Stargen. This was to seal a life time family friendship and many more happy times together.

Upon finishing school Annie went onto Secretary College. She graduated and quickly secured a role as a PA in the City of London. Annie was young and glamorous lady, with strawberry blonde hair down to her waist, and a penchant for the highly fashionable a-line dresses. Annie loved to accompany her father Bill to his business dinners and events. She was charming, turned heads, and was already honing her networking skills from an early age.

In 1974, beginning to tire of London Annie decided to move Llandrindod Wells on a whim after reading an article in the newspaper. All belonging were packed up into a lorry, including her mini, which refused to start and had to be counted as luggage. She threw herself into country life, quickly developing a new circle of friends through joining the women’s institute, local amateur dramatics society, and working in the local pub. Huge amounts of happy times were spent with John, Liz, and Ian making costumes for local productions, starring in homemade horror films, and even winning the title of Beauty Queen of Llandrindod Wells. Holidays including jumping out of wardrobes to surprise Sue and Dai in Mikanos. She worked as a PA to the county librarian but her social life was the main affair, confessing in her later years that sometimes she left parties not able to tell whether it was dark getting light or light getting dark!

Annie had her first daughter Hannah, in 1980, followed by her second daughter Rebecca in 1983. Annie gave up work to focus on bringing up a young family and doing up their house Penrhos. Annie’s sense of humour, tireless energy, and hosting skills filled family life. She was famed for wonderful dinner parties, and at one infamous new years eve party there were so many people invited to attend, that late comers had to climb through the window to reach a place at the dining table. Annie continued to play a key role in community life and was always known to challenge traditions and boundaries. She organised the Palm Sunday School celebration which involved parading a donkey and all their children not only around but into the church. She directed and danced the Can Can in the local music hall production. And the entire family starred in the annual Christmas Pantomime, The Wizard of Oz. Annie was the scarecrow, Ian was the iron man, Hannah was a munkin, and Rebecca was the witch of the east. She played a key role in setting up the Victorian Festival, embracing the opportunity to the bring the best street theatre, circus performers, and samba bands to a sleepy mid Wales town.

Inspired by meeting Adam on holiday in Greece, Annie decided she wanted to go to university. In 1988 she was awarded a place in Aberystwyth to study English and Drama. She embraced university life as a mature student, reading as much as possible. During school holidays Hannah and Rebecca would be bribed by the promise of an ice cream on the sea front in return for accompanying her to lectures.
In 1991 Annie, Rebecca, and Hannah moved to Cardiff, and so began life as the Mitchell Musketeers’! Annie found 44 Plasturton Avenue whilst cycling around on the back of a tandem with Francis. And a Musaketeer vote decided this was the house for us, yes it need quite a bit of work, but no task was too small for Annie. She finished her degree in Cardiff, whilst working in three part time jobs, mastering DIY skills, and bringing up a young family.

In true Annie style every opportunity was sought to build a new family life. We joined the campaign to protect the wildlife in Cardiff Bay, a local circus skills group, and the embraced the Avenue’s bohemian Christmas carols and New Year Samba parties. We were welcomed by neighbours including the Harper’s and Nash’s and we soon became part of one another’s families. 44 became a hub for Hannah, Rebecca and their friends, who loved to come and stay. Annie even had to insist that each teenager bought their own box of cereal to eat, as hungry teenagers were eating her out of house and home.

Annie graduated in 1993 and launched a successful career in Higher Education. She worked with Welsh Funding Council, Merthyr College and finally with Cardiff University where she went onto become Widening Access Manager.
As Hannah and Rebecca grew up and left for univesity, Annie found herself with much more time. She loved working with the Widening Access Team and threw herself into extending their portfolio of activities to attract non-traditional students. She developed and ran numerous residential schemes giving young people from all over south Wales their first taste of what university life could offer.

She also developed a passion for long haul travel. Visiting Hannah in Guyana and then holidaying in Trinidad, Tobago, India and Thailand. Annie also decided to re-take up sailing, an old childhood hobby which she’d enjoyed with her Dad. She enrolled in a 4 days Yacht Master Course.

A contact at work invited her to go sailing in Cardiff Bay, where she was introduced to Martin. Martin impressed Annie with dinner on his boat, sailing weekends away, and upbeat and charming company. They began to spend more time together and we knew things must be going well when Annie managed to burn Martin’s teak deck making crème brulee without any backlash!

Annie and Martin spent a huge amount of time sailing together. Many times they completed the round the island race and were regular competitors at Cardiff bay Yacht Club. They took the boat down to Plymouth so they could enjoy trips further afield sailing to Guernsey, Scilly Iles, and St Malo. Martin and Annie hosted amazing family weekends on the boat with G&Ts and three course meals to boot! But it wasn’t always plain sailing. On one occasion when returning to Plymouth in a force 8 gale and huge seas, the Plymouth lifeboat was waiting for them to returning having been alerted by the coast guard. Even the RNLI lifeboat was waiting behind the harbour breakwater for shelter in such bad weather!

The Mitchell/Mulhollands happily became one family. With five daughters between them life was always busy. We spent family weekends in 44, regular trips to London, and holidays in France. Rebecca’s got married in 2007. The first grandchildren, twin girls, Daisy and Amelia arrived in 2008.

Annie was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer in May 2011. It was a real shock to the family and close friends. In true Annie spirit she embraced the moment and focused on creating important family times. In summer 2011 Annie and Martin married in Welsh College of Music and Drama with close family. Afterwards we enjoyed cake and champagne with friends and neighbours, with Annie saying, ‘Life is short, let’s eat cake!’. We organised family holidays in South West France, skilling holidays, spa days, and theatre trips. Annie and Martin saw their family grow as their remaining four daughter’s married and three more grandchildren arrived.

Annie began to do research into treatments for her cancer. She joined various patient support groups and began to meet local charities. She began to question the medical options available to her in Wales. In 2012, Annie decided to register her address in London, and stay with Hannah, to receive treatment from the Royal Marsden. She became heavily involved in Target Ovarian Cancer. She spoke at All Party Parliamentary Groups, embraced all media opportunities, and became a well-known for providing a patient perspective at conferences for clinicians. Advocating the role of patients should play in decisions about access to treatment and care became central to her campaign. Annie set up an online support group for women with Ovarian Cancer across the UK. They provided each other a huge amount of support and but also got involved in key campaign and events. The group develop deep and vital friendships. Annie arranged many trips to London and events around the country. They were renowned not only for providing patient perspectives but also for lovely dinner out together, stays in hotels, and most importantly lots of laughs.

Annie approached her campaign with such energy, vigour, and determination. She called cancer her new career. She networked, lobbied, researched, to ensure she knew the facts. She was creative, imaginative, and energetic in bringing solutions to the table. She was kind, generous, and caring, especially for her ovarian friends, who she met along the way. Often saying these other women provided an absolute life line to help her face her fight with cancer.

In the last 12 months Annie’s campaign reached a climax. BBC Wales made a documentary of her story. She loved the time she spent with Justyn making sure every aspect of her journey was captured on camera. She became a regular feature in local, regional and national press. In February this year she organised the One Voice Wales event with 120 people attending from political parties, cancer charities, clinicians and patients. And in May Annie’s final event for World Ovarian Cancer Awareness Year involved lighting up City Hall in teal coloured lights with a performance from the Cardiff Samba Band. The event continued in spite of Annie’s admittance to A&E and her insistence that the family must make sure this happened. Right until the last few days of her life she was still actively involved in the campaign doing a BBC phone interview from her bed at home just days before she died.

In Mum’s final days she reached out and took my hand and said, ‘you mustn’t worry, my love isn’t limited, I have so much love to give.’ This has been highlighted by some of the tributes to Mum since she died: inspirational, a legend, articulate, power house, full of mischief, courageous, utterly irreplaceable.
Before Mum died she received a card from a friend, who had coined the abbreviation WWAD - What Would Annie Do. For some of us, to find the inner strength that Mum had might seem impossible. Mum’s dad, our granddad, once said to me, you only loose someone when they die if you don’t change because of them. Take what you admired from them most, and put it into your everyday life, and their legacy will live on in you.
For me, I will take Mum’s sense of occasion. Her ability to celebrate broken glass or spilt milk. Mum was not afraid to laugh. She didn’t hide it behind her hand or under her breath. She would throw her head back and embrace it. If the situation saw fit she would even let out the most outrageous snort! Then continue with unapologetic laughter. Love life, love laughter, and enjoy every moment.
We’re here today to celebrate Annie’s life. And in her true spirit, we encourage you to turn to the person next to you, and take a moment to share your love, laughter and memories of Annie.