Angel:Selfless woman takes in neighbour's children after their mum suddenly died of tragic cancer.

She said hello when she passed her in the street but never saw her as a friend.But when Anne Meskell died suddenly of ovarian cancer, it was Marcia Young who selflessly took charge of her young twins.

The civil servant is now legal guardian to Eve and Nathan, doubling the number of children in her east London house.The twins were conceived through egg and sperm donation and Miss Young said she could not let them go into care , despite not being especially close to their mother.

She said: “I feared they would be separated. “When social services told me Anne hadn’t made a will stating who would look after her children, I stepped in.“At first I thought it would be until another family member came forward, but that never happened.

“So I vowed to look after Eve and Nathan like they were my own.

“I didn’t want them being taken away or separated.”
Now the twins, who are aged 14, live with Miss Young – who they call Auntie Marcia – and consider her children Jasmine, 22, and Clarke, 23, to be their sister and brother.

Ironically Miss Young and Miss Meskell were not particularly close.

“We were neighbours rather than friends,” Miss Young, of East London, said.

The 56-year-old said she first met Miss Meskell in 2002 when Jasmine and Clarke were then nine and 10 and Eve and Nathan were two.

Over the next six years the pair would stop and pass the time of day when they saw each other outside their homes, but that was the extent of their interaction.

Things changed in 2008 when Miss Meskell told her neighbour she had not been feeling herself.

”She said her tummy had hurt for about six months,” Miss Young recalled.

“It didn’t sound like anything too serious at first.

“She was told it was indigestion but it didn’t seem to get any better.

“She asked me to look after the kids for her, while she went to the hospital.

“Then she came home and said she had ovarian cancer.”

Miss Meskell decided not to tell the twins, had an operation to remove the cancer and began chemotherapy.

Concerned for her neighbours health, Miss Young stepped in to help out with her children.

“She seemed so exhausted with all the treatment, I wanted to relieve her of some of the pressure and let her relax for a bit,” Miss Young said.

“Looking after her children for a few hours a day was nothing in comparison to what she was going through.

“Anne didn’t have anyone else. Her mum was in her 80s and housebound, but I was happy to step in and help her out.”

In 2010 Miss Meskell needed a hysterectomy. The operation went well but afterwards her condition suddenly deteriorated.
Miss Young said: “One day I went round and she’d lost so much weight it suddenly dawned on me how ill she was.

“She acted like she didn’t need any help, but she did. She was so strong. I think she was in denial.”

The following year she was called into Eve and Nathan’s school over concerns their mother was not able to look after the properly.
It was then she offered to take them home with her if their mother died until other accommodation could be found.

She said: “I wondered if Anne was struggling to look after them at home, and if they were fending for themselves.

“In the past Anne had said she wouldn’t allow anyone to take care of her kids, but she seemed to warm to me.

“There was nothing she wouldn’t do for them. Her only wish was to make them happy.”

In June 2011 Miss Meskell died, age 55. She took the children to Miss Young's mother, but the elderly lady was too frail to look after them.

Miss Young added: “So I stepped in. At first I was worried about them getting used to life without their mum.

“But they were fine, and chatted away their memories of her.”

In 2012 Miss Young became Eve and Nathan’s legal guardian, and now they call her Auntie Marcia.

She said: “We’re one big happy family, the kids are like siblings.

“And I hope Anne is looking down, pleased with how we’re all doing.”

Jasmine Berry, Miss Young's daughter, said she loved her new siblings and was "proud" of her mother for taking them under her wing despite having no obligation to do so.

“We didn’t want them going in to a home,” she said.