The daughter of an actress starring in a West End play has spent four years waking up every morning believing she is in France.
In 2013 Tansy Smethurst, 13, from Greenwich, south-east London, was on holiday with her family, including her mother Rakie Ayola – who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play – when she developed spots on her body and was rushed to hospital.
Scans revealed the teenager had a brain cyst, known as Neurofibromatosis type 1, which she had removed only to develop a serious infection that has left her with severe memory loss.
Four years later and despite undergoing 12 operations, Tansy can still only remember up to the day before she went on holiday and constantly bombards her devastated family with the same questions.
Rakie, 48, said: ‘She still has memory issues, for example when we drive to see family in Wales she will ask several times on the journey where we are going.
‘There are moments when someone asks how you are and you burst into tears.’
