Last September, on Sunrise, Edwina Bartholomew announced she’d been diagnosed with leukaemia. Seven months later — and on the road to recovery from cancer — she invites The Weekly to the town of Carcoar to glimpse her new life and unexpected blessings.
Car tyres crunch on a gravel road, winding through dense, white fog on the valley floor then up again into pale sunlight. A mob of 20 grey kangaroos races The Weekly team across golden paddocks on either side of this back road to Carcoar. One last bend, then we’re on the main street of town, and beyond that, in an old Victorian cottage, Edwina Bartholomew is waiting. She’s listening to the dawn chorus, tearing into a croissant from a local bakery, ready for hair and make-up as she has been almost every morning for the past 20 years.
However, it’s not the Sunrise crew today. Edwina and her husband, Neil Varcoe, have invited The Weekly to join them in the NSW Central West to explore the National Trust-listed town where they’re putting down roots and, now that the shock has dissipated a little from Edwina’s leukaemia diagnosis, to share a glimpse into their future.
A new home in a historic town
The family already feels embedded in this town. “Carcoar is a special place,” Edwina says. “It gets under people’s skin.”
“It gets into their feet as well,” quips five-year-old Molly, and shows us the spot where she got a splinter on the old, wooden bridge.
When they first visited here on a holiday, Edwina and Neil were intrigued by the town’s history. She points out shopfronts, a courthouse, the post office, a bank (where the manager famously fell into a cellar while foiling a pair of bushrangers) — all built here, on Wiradjuri country, in the 19th century as the colony pushed west, looking for grazing land and gold.
But it’s not just the history of this town that Edwina has fallen in love with — it’s the whole package.
“It’s a really beautiful community,” she explains. “Every Thursday night, everyone goes down to the pub and has dinner together. It’s a ‘no one gets left behind’ kind of community where people care for each other. We felt it from the first time we came here. It’s like the movie Brigadoon: The mist parts, and there’s this little town hidden in the valley. It’s this little gem.
“You can be here in town and see kangaroos hopping over the hills at the station. There’s the Carcoar Show in October. Neil enters the cake competition for the blokes. Molly and I might enter the jam competition this year. There’s a little horse the kids feed at the other end of town. They swim in the river. There are little gold flecks on the bottom. There used to be gold in this area, so the sand in the river is actually gold.”
Edwina’s latest venture: Saltash Farm
Around the corner, by the Belubula River, sits the old guesthouse and land — Saltash Farm — where Edwina and Neil (and their little ones, Molly and Thomas, two) are building a new life.
At the moment, Neil lives here full-time, and the rest of the family comes up on weekends — often long weekends. The guesthouse has been stripped back to bare bones, and soon the restoration will begin. There have been hold-ups with approvals (as can happen in a National Trust town), but there have been “serendipitous events” too, like finding a local builder who understands their dream.
“It all makes us feel we’re headed in the right direction,” Edwina says.
Edwina’s cancer recovery is on the horizon
Edwina’s health is also heading in the right direction, which is the news that all of Australia has been hoping to hear since she, tearfully yet optimistically, shared her diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) on Sunrise last September.
“I’m super fortunate,” she says, “that when they said to me, ‘you have cancer’, they also added, ‘it’s this kind, and it’s a good kind and there’s a medication for it. You can go to your local pharmacy and pick it up for $30 a bottle, and it will most likely work.’ Almost straightaway, the blood cell count started to go down.”
In CML, the body produces a “fusion gene” called BCR-ABL1. When Edwina was first diagnosed, her count was at around 30 per cent. But a fortnight before The Weekly came to visit, her blood test clocked the errant genes at just 0.094 per cent. That, she says, indicates a “deep and effective response to treatment” and means she is on the verge of “molecular remission”.
“If it gets down to 0.000, then I know it’s essentially gone from my body, but then I need to take medication for the next three years, or even in perpetuity, to keep it out of my system. I’ve had no side effects from the medication, so it’s no problem for me to keep taking it.
“I’m very cognisant of the fact that this is not the case for everybody. A lot of people who have CML have to go through chemotherapy and other kinds of treatments. But for me, because I caught it early, this is the only thing I’ve had to do.”
Sharing her diagnosis was a “tough period”
When she was first diagnosed, there was a sense of shock and also sadness. Still unsure whether treatment would be successful, Edwina went on a holiday with her best friend, Pip Brett, to a health retreat in New Zealand.
“It was straight after I made the announcement on Sunrise,” she says, “and that was a really tough period. It was a pretty emotional time. But what an amazing gift that is for a friend to come with you on a trip like that.”
Another challenge has been telling people. “I still don’t say out loud that I have cancer very often,” she says, grappling to articulate the intricate feelings involved. “Even talking to you now, it’s a shock to say it … It’s a weird mix of different emotions. That kind of guilt around being okay, when others aren’t … Really mixed emotions.”
Telling the people she loves was especially difficult. She hasn’t told her children, and has no plans to. Her parents, she says, are immensely relieved that her recent blood-test results have been good.
“But I think they worry about me still”.
Edwina on juggling her health, family and diagnosis
One of the things they worry about is the pace at which Edwina has always lived her life. However, that is changing.
“It has probably gone from 130 per cent down to 80 per cent,” she chuckles. And that’s been helped along by negotiating a new work routine.
“I’ve been lucky that, having worked for Channel Seven for 20 years, they were really supportive,” she explains. “I had a meeting with them straight after I found out, and I said, ‘I just can’t work these hours, hammer and tongs, like I used to.’”
She now works flexibly — three days a week in the studio and one from home. When she notices herself slipping back into old habits, “saying yes to too many things”, Edwina pulls herself up.
“I just can’t do that anymore,” she says. “I have to be so conscious of not burning myself out. I’ve to be careful that I don’t take it for granted that I’m okay, which I think I probably have over the last month.
I went back, a bit, to living life as ‘Edwina Bartholomew 1.0’. So I just went away for two days by myself and slept and read books. It’s a work in progress.”
It’s not just the pace of Edwina’s life that has changed. There have been subtler shifts too, and positive ones, that will echo for years to come.
Edwina has a “second lease on life”
“You get this second lease on life, and you get this perspective change that a health shock affords you,” she explains. “A friend of mine described it as like an awful dose of mortality. You’ve realised that, in a second, you could lose it all. I’m so conscious that I could have gone into the doctor’s office that day, and they could have said anything. They could have said, “You’ve got two weeks to live”, or “Go sort out your affairs”, or “This is the end”. But they didn’t.
“Since then, I think I’ve become more patient. Things don’t faze me like they used to. I’m easier on myself — physically and mentally. I think I’m also less grumpy,” and she laughs.
“It’s been an extraordinary shift. There have been many positive parts to it. Realising and relishing beautiful friendships that I’ve had for a very long time that have become even deeper and more meaningful. Realising there are so many people who are there for you — from close friends to new friends and school friends and family, to total strangers.
“I have people reaching out on Instagram and just saying, ‘I’ve been thinking of you. How are you going?’ People are so caring. People have reached out to me who are going through the same thing, and that’s been nice too — having that confidential community of people.
“We hear all the negative sides of social media and being in the public eye, but for me, there has been this overwhelming wave of love — it’s been a really beautiful thing.”
What to do with that new lease on life?
And all those inner changes have made the decision to eventually up sticks and move the family’s focus to Saltash Farm feel even more serendipitous. “I’ve just been given this second chance at life,” she says.
“So what do I do with that? I’m determined to make sure that the next chapter of our lives is as full as it can possibly be, because what a gift it is to be told that you’re sick, you have cancer, but you’ll be okay.”
Tom has been stacking bricks and spotting kangaroos from the back porch at Saltash Farm. Molly has taken on a role as junior photographic assistant. She’s also rolled out a batch of pink and purple Play-Doh biscuits and created an uncannily lifelike chalk portrait of her mum. Later, when the neighbours’ kids get back from the Blayney Show, she and Tom are plotting to invite them around to paint. There hasn’t been a “device” in sight all day, and nobody’s asked for one. This town has impossible mobile reception, but one suspects this is more than an accessibility issue — that it’s part of the Bartholomew/Varcoe family’s new appreciation of even the small moments of life.
Life at Saltash Farm
They had already bought Saltash Farm and begun work on the property before Edwina was told she had cancer. Neil, who had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, was spending most of his time in Carcoar, but still working in a freelance capacity in media.
“The reason we moved out to Carcoar was very much for Neil’s health,” Edwina explains, “and this place has genuinely healed him. That was a decision we had to make for ourselves a few years ago because what we were doing clearly wasn’t working. It wasn’t working for him, it wasn’t working for our family, it wasn’t working for our marriage. And it’s been the best possible thing for us.
“It seems kind of strange. He lives here, three hours away from us, and we see him on weekends and holidays and back and forth, but it’s been the best thing, and probably the only way we would have survived as a family. It meant he could prioritise his health and have space and time, but then, when he’s with the kids, he’s 150 per cent switched on.”
Edwina’s cancer diagnosis gave her an insight into Neil’s struggles
Edwina believes her experience with leukaemia has not only helped her appreciate her own vulnerability, but has given her a deeper understanding of Neil’s struggles, and in that way, brought them closer.
“I think it’s made me a bit more empathetic of his chronic fatigue,” she explains. “He’s getting better now, but he’s been sick for 10 years. Was I as understanding as I could have been throughout that entire time? Probably not. So I think that’s given me a new perspective.
“Having always been really gung-ho, now being the one who has to rest and not always be pushing, that’s made me push him less as well. I think it’s made us much more appreciative of the time we have together, too — and the importance of taking that time — just the two of us.”
It’s made them more aware of family time as well, as is so evident in every moment here. They have thought long and hard about how these lifestyle changes will affect Molly and Tom, and these kids are an integral, joyful, adored and respected part of the team.
Family is the most important thing
“There’s definitely been a reassessment of our priorities, and of what kind of life we want for our kids,” Edwina says, as Tom and Molly gather a box of painting gear for this afternoon’s playdate. “We want to be around for them. We want to see them grow up, and we want to be there for those moments.
“It’s taken the urgency out of everything, and you just become incredibly appreciative of really simple stuff. If I’m reading to them and they want another book, we read another book. It sounds super clichéd, but it’s made us focus more on the things that really matter, and given us the ability to let everything else just fade into the distance a bit.”
Looking to the future
Neil has now given up his media career entirely to become a full-time country bloke, and ultimately, that’s where Edwina sees life leading her too. She’s not prepared to say when that will be yet. It won’t be this year or next, but she can see herself based in Carcoar, in her gumboots, lady of the guesthouse and the veggie patch, kids roaming up the road to the local school.
When that happens, would she be tempted to still dabble in the media, or could she let that life go entirely, with no regrets at all? “The 10-year plan,” she says, “is that we will be here full-time, and I don’t particularly have a desire to keep a hand in media when that happens. When we choose a life out here full-time, that will be the decision. Never say never, but I can’t see myself trying to bridge the two worlds. You know, there are many ways to live a life — that’s been the biggest takeaway of this process.”
And in the meantime, this little family is happy to take each day as it comes.“What does life look like for us in one year, two years, three years, four years, five? We don’t know, but we’re a little less wed to the idea of a plan, perhaps because of what’s happened over the last few months,” Edwina says with that beaming smile.
“When life throws you a curveball that you never saw coming, you just have to get on with it. That’s what we’re doing.”
This feature originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Pick up the latest magazine at your local newsagents or SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an issue!
