Leeds grandmother with terminal cancer models in fashion show as she ticks off her bucket list

More than two years later, the Leeds grandmother has strutted down a runway wearing vibrant African clothes in celebration of women. While her diagnosis hasn’t changed, Julia – also known as Precious Jewels by her loved ones – is determined to make the most of her time left, working through a bucket list.

Morley-born Julia discovered a love for dancing as a teenager and joined a dance group.She said: “We didn’t really have a name – it was just ‘the best dancers’ and so we would just use to go to all events in Manchester, Birmingham, London, everywhere, and win the dance competitions. I was a dancer on roller skates.”

Leaving her skates behind, Julia worked with youth offenders and as a counsellor, before moving to London with a man she met on the dance floor in the 80s. She stayed there for 26 years and worked for the Ministry of Justice for almost a decade. Julia added: “It was a lot different than being in Leeds; there were guns, drugs, serious gangs – but I loved it.”

She returned to Leeds to support her eldest son, who had become involved with a gang himself. While her children grew up, Julia was getting ill but not in the way she had imagined. She mistook her symptoms of nights sweats and relentless itching for