ANNE Snelgrove, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for South Swindon, has resumed her political campaign after an apparently successful course of treatment for cervical cancer.

Mrs Snelgrove, 55, who was the MP from 2005 to 2010, announced in October that she would be unavailable to constituents and the media for some months due to the possible side-effects of the treatment, so Swindon North running mate Mark Dempsey would be the point of contact.

Following a course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy at Cheltenham General Hospital between late October and early December, she now says she is in remission and the cancer appears to have gone, but she will be monitored for five years until she gets the final all-clear.

Mrs Snelgrove, who survived cervical cancer once before 15 years ago, said she would like to thank the NHS for saving her life, the Swindon residents who sent her emails and cards of support, and the staff at Cheltenham’s Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre, who helped her through the treatment.

She said: “Cancer is something that more of us are surviving these days. I think it certainly does change you and certainly it’s made me think differently about things.

“But it’s made me more determined to campaign because I think the NHS is something worth campaigning for and I believe the Labour Government would restore the NHS, and I’m worried about the changes coming in this week. And it’s re-doubled my strength of feeling about campaigning and becoming the next MP for Swindon South.”

Mrs Snelgrove, who has a background in teaching and adult education, said the worst moment was in February when she had a post-treatment MRI scan, which suggested she was not quite clear, although it was not conclusive.

She then had to wait five distressing weeks for a PET scan, which showed it had gone.

She said: “It takes a lot of getting used to that I now have a future because for quite a long time I was quite pessimistic about it, particularly after that first scan.

“The five weeks after that first scan were the worst I have ever gone through. Because the treatment was finished and all I had to think about was ‘Had the treatment worked?’ and it didn’t look very positive after that first scan. The second scan, I was not very optimistic about it, and when they told me I was fine I had to readjust. ”

Mrs Snelgrove, of Euclid Street, Central Swindon, is still suffering from tiredness due to the after-effects of the radiotherapy, but is now working two or three days a week, with the aim of building up to full time by the end of the year. Her first public engagement after the treatment was Saturday’s bedroom tax protest.